| Abstract: | This investigation had the purpose of evaluating the reliability of a sequential extraction procedure according to Zeien and Brümmer (1989) which is performed routinely to analyse the distribution of heavy metals to different soil phases. Reliability was tested by two hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis an error propagation increased during a morefold extraction of heavy metals from a single soil sample to such an extend that it does not allow a statistical comparison of different analyses. This assumption was confirmed in an interlaboratory study of five participants applying the sequential extraction scheme on two different soils. The heavy metal amounts extracted by the different partners were of the same magnitude, but from the results no statistical correspondence at the 95% confidence level could be observed. The second hypothesis stated that also weak extraction agents were able to release metals from the more immobile soil fractions, especially if the amount of easily soluble metals was comparatively small. To answer this question the sequential extraction was modified by carrying out selected weak extraction steps several times. As expected the intensified extraction conditions caused a decrease of the element content within the more resistant phases. However, the additional release in the first four extraction steps of Pb, Mn, Fe, and Zn was only in the range of 5 to 10%. Furthermore, it was observed that a single EDTA extraction (step four within the sequential extraction scheme) was capable to extract the same amount of metals as the first four extraction steps of the original scheme at a variation of about 15%. From these results it was concluded that the EDTA step alone already represents a reliable pool of mobilisable metals. Thus it can be maintained that such a simple single EDTA extraction can be used to assess the environmental risk from heavy metal contaminated soils or to predict the potential heavy metal release of soil remediation processes. |
