Speciation of heavy metals in suspended particulates in urban air†

Abstract

An anayltical procedure based on a sequential extraction scheme is applied to samples of suspended particulates from an urban area of Barcelona. This area presents high levels of air pollution owing to automotive emissions and industrial activity. The procedure allows the partitioning of particulate trace metals into four fractions: soluble and exchangeable, bound to carbonates and iron‐manganese oxides, bound to organic matter and residual. In this work, the chemical associations of Fe, Pb, Cu, Mn, Cr and Cd have been investigated. In the analysed samples, only the cadmium is predominantly in the first fraction whereas the other metals are largely associated to carbonates and Fe‐Mn oxides.