Elemental Constitution Detection of Environmental Samples of Delhi Using XRF Spectroscopy

Abstract

Metal toxicity has proven to be a major threat to human life as there are several health risks associated with it. Metal bio-magnification within living systems is a persisting problem. Due to anthropogenic activities, the concentration of various metals in environmental samples (plants, soil, air, water, etc.) is increasing at an alarming rate thus leading to their contamination. Investigations on determining the contamination level of environmental samples have been going on for a substantial amount of time in India as well as all over the world. Electrochemical, chemical or spectroscopic techniques have been popular for the abovementioned purpose. These methods although being easier and compatible, lag behind in sensitivity and accuracy. Thus, there is a need for a better technique which can detect contaminants in trace and ultra-trace amounts and also has multi-element detection capacity. Present work is an effort to identify contamination in different soil and plant samples collected from diverse land use sites in Delhi using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy. XRF offers the advantages of higher sensitivity (detection in the range of ppm), multi-element detection capability and easier sample preparation over other techniques. The samples were collected from two sites having different biological toxicity. Concentrations of the elements detected in the samples have been estimated from the X-ray spectra of the samples.