Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) and Heavy Metals Accumulation in Soils around Oil Refineries: Case Study from Three Southern Oil Refineries in the State of Kuwait
- 1 Kuwait University, Kuwait
Abstract
Geochemical and statistical analysis of Sulfur dioxide, Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and heavy metal pollutants (Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, Ni, Fe, Mn, Cr and V) was conducted to soil samples around major oil refineries (Mina Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba), industries and scanty residential areas in Al-Ahmadi governorate at the southern region of the State of Kuwait. High level of SO2 was found in soil samples of the adjacent area of the refineries (15,000-23,000) ug g-1 and TOC ranging between 0.01 to 1.62 μg g-1 in the soil samples. Furthermore, trace metal analysis in sediment samples revealed high metal levels in the sequence of Fe (17.153 μg g-1) > Zn (151.08 μg g-1) > Ni (112.78 μg g-1) > Pb (27.71 μg g-1) > Mn (404.27 μg g-1) > Cd (0.08 μg g-1) > Cu (23.79 μg g-1) > Cr (56.23 μg g-1) > V (36.53 μg g-1). Cr and V were within the permissible limit. Accordingly, the soil analysis demonstrated that the area around Mina Abdullah refinery was the most polluted area and Shuaiba refinery was the least polluted area, indicating the significance of pollution due to the increase of emissions from the refineries and factories in the area. The level of pollution is alarming, health effected and environmental monitoring is highly recommended.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajessp.2018.12.43
Copyright: © 2018 Laila S. Gharib and Mohammad Al Sarawi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Air Pollution
- Oil Refinery
- Pollution
- Soil
- Trace Metals
- Health Risk
- Petrochemicals
- Total Organic Carbon