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Heavy Metals Pollution in Surface Soils in the Vicinity of Abundant Railway Servicing Workshop in Kumasi, Ghana

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Heavymetals in soils are of great environmental concern, in order to determine heavy metal content in the surface soil from the vicinity of an abundant railway servicing workshop and evaluate the contamination levels, 40 surface soil samples were collected and analyzed for Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Fe and Ni contents using atomic absorption spectroscopy. Soil texture, conductivity, pH, total organic content and cation exchange capacity werealso measured. Heavymetals concentrations were determined after digestion of samples with aqua regia. In the investigated soils, the mean recordedconeentrations oftbe heavymetals were7.21 mg/kg f ffor Cu, 0.033 mg/kg forNi, 0.087 rng/ kg forCd, 48.52 mg/kgfor Fe, 7.33mg/kgforZnand 26.66 mg/kg forPb. The reportedresults indicate that the enrichment factors of the measured heavy metals were 2.26, >0.1,0.39 and 3.47 for copper, nickel, zinc and lead respectively. I-geo (geoaccumulation index) values of the metals in the soils under study indicate that they are uncontaminated to slightly contaminate with nickel and iron but highIycontaminated with copper and lead.

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