Inorganic pollution in the soil of an industrial plant. A chemometric study

The study of the pollution by inorganic wastes of the area within an industrial plant is presented. The pollution was examined by collecting soil samples, at different depths, on the whole area of the plant, which extended over 150,000 m(2). In the samples, after dissolution, lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, iron, boron, sulphur and phosphorus were determined by ICP-AES technique. The results, analysed by Principal Component Analysis, allowed to localise the polluted zones within the plant area, to determine the depth of the pollution and to quantify the amount of pollutants in the soil. We found two well defined polluted areas with different kinds of pollution, even if on the whole a mixture of different pollutants were to be found with an irregular distribution of them.