Determination of heavy metals and their speciation in street dusts by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry after a Community Bureau of Reference sequential extraction procedure.

Sequential selective extraction techniques are commonly used to fractionate the solid-phase forms of metals in soils. This procedure provides measurements of extractable metals from media, such as acetic acid (0.11 M), hydroxyl ammonium chloride (0.1 M), hydrogen peroxide (8.8 M) plus ammonium acetate (1 M), and aqua regia stages of the sequential extraction procedure. In this work, the extractable Pb, Cu, Mn, Sr, Ni, V, Fe, Zn, and Cr were evaluated in street dust samples from Sakarya, Turkey, between May and October 2009 using the three-step sequential extraction procedure described by the Community Bureau of Reference (BCR, now the Standards, Measurements, and Testing Programme) of the European Union. The sampling sites were divided into 10 categories; a total of 50 street dusts were analyzed. The determination of multielements in the samples was performed by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. Validation of the proposed method was performed using BCR 701 certified reference material. The results showed good agreement between the obtained and the certified values for the metals analyzed.