Chemometrical interpretation of lake waters after their chemical analysis by using aas, flame photometry and titrimetric techniques

This article reports the distribution of trace metals and major ions in lake waters of Sultansazligi, a reedfield near Kayseri, Turkey. The determination of elements such as Cr, Ni, Cu, Cd and Pb in lake water samples was performed by AAS after a preconcentration step using a column packed with Amberlite XAD-16 resin. Both flame- and graphite furnace-atomic absorption spectrometry was used to determine these metals in lake water samples. The concentrations of the metals bound to humic substances, and free metal ions were determined after their sorption-elution on the resin, separately. The column method optimized with sodium tetraborate reagent was used in determining the free metal ions. In the determinations of Ca2+ and Mg2+, K+, and SO42-, Cl- and total hardness, flame atomic absorption spectrometry, flame photometry, and titrimetry were used, respectively. In order to evaluate the analytical data by multivariate statistical techniques which enable feature reduction and grouping of the pollutant sources in lake waters from their chemical composition, principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA) and correlation analysis were used. As a consequence of multivariate statistical evaluation, main anthropogenic sources like traffic, industry and agricultural processes were drawn to be responsible from the pollution in the environment investigated.