Mohammad Amirul Islam
Reactor and Neutron Physics Division, Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, AERE, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Ganakbari, Ashulia, Dhaka 1349, Bangladesh
Biplob Das
Department of Physics, Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology, Chittagong 4349, Bangladesh
Shamshad Begum Quraishi
Chemistry Division, Atomic Energy Centre, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, 4 Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rahat Khan
Reactor and Neutron Physics Division, Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, AERE, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Ganakbari, Ashulia, Dhaka 1349, Bangladesh
Kamrun Naher
Reactor and Neutron Physics Division, Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, AERE, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Ganakbari, Ashulia, Dhaka 1349, Bangladesh
Syed Mohammod Hossain
Reactor and Neutron Physics Division, Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, AERE, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Ganakbari, Ashulia, Dhaka 1349, Bangladesh
Shanjib Karmaker
Nuclear Power and Energy Division, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, E-12/A Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh
Shaikh Abdul Latif
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Mohammad Belal Hossen
Department of Physics, Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology, Chittagong 4349, Bangladesh
Heavy metal, Metalloid Water, Sediment contamination, Ecological risk assessment, Halda river,Multivariate statistical analysis, Neutron activation analysis
The Halda river, Bangladesh
Risk Management in Agriculture
Heavy metal, Fish
Sediment samples were collected from 20 sampling points, and water samples were collected from 5 points of the 20 sediment sample collection points of the river. The surface sediment (0–5 cm) samples were collected using an acrylic pipe sampler during ebbs. In this study, for each sediment sample, three replicate sediment samples collected from each point are mixed into a composite sample. The collected samples were dried in an electric oven at 45 °C until they attained constant weight, and ground into powder by agate mortar and pestle. For water sample collection, 2 L of surface water sample was collected from each site. Each water sample was immediately acidified with nitric acid (pH ~ 2) and transferred to the laboratory. Analytical grade chemicals and reagents were used throughout the study. The sediment sample analysis procedures using neutron activation analysis (NAA) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) techniques were the same as by Islam et al. (2017). NAA is considered to be a primary method of measurement and possesses a versatile applicability (Greenberg et al., 2011; Islam et al., 2011; Islam and Ebihara, 2017). For metal ana-lysis in the sediment samples by NAA, approximately 50 mg of each dried powder sediment sample and three reference materials—IAEA-Soil-7, IAEA-SL-1 (Lake Sediment), and NIST-1633b were analyzed. For the re-lative standardization approach of NAA, the samples and standards were irradiated using a pneumatic transfer (rabbit) system (thermal neutron flux of ~1013 cm−2·s−1) at the 3 MW TRIGA Mark–II research reactor of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission. In this study, the mass fractions of Ni, Cu, Cd, Hg, and Pb in sediment samples were determined using AAS following the standard procedure (Islam et al., 2017), and the mass fractions of the rest of the studied metals were determined using NAA. For the determination of mass fractions of Al in the sediment samples by NAA, the interferences from 28Si(n,p)28Al and 32P(n,α)28Al reactions were calculated and corrected following the procedure published earlier (Islam et al., 2017). One gram of sediment subsamples and the same standards used for NAA were digested for AAS. The mass fractions of the metals in sediment and water samples were determined by AAS (Varian Analytical Instruments, Models AA DUO 240 FS and AA 280 Z). To assess metal pollution levels of the sediments of the Halda river, EF and Igeo (Abrahim and Parker, 2008), CF (Hakanson, 1980), and PLI (Tomlinson et al., 1980) were used. To calculate these environmental indices, metal abundances of the upper continental crust (UCC: Rudnick and Gao, 2014) were used as the baseline data. The PERI (Hakanson, and sediment quality guidelines (SQGS: MacDonald et al., 2000; Long and Morgan, 1991) were used to assess ecological risks posed by the metals in the sediments. Methodologies and mathematical expressions for EF, Igeo, CF, PLI, and PERI were essentially the same as those of our previous studies (Islam et al., 2017; Tamim et al., 2016). In this study, Statistica 8.0 for Windows (StatSoft Inc. STATISTICA, 2008) was used to calculate the Pearson correlation matrix and principal component analysis (PCA). To ensure reported data quality, repeated analyses of reference materials IAEA-SL-1 and NIST-1633b were performed along with the sediment samples (Supplementary data: Table S1). To ensure data quality of water samples, NIST-SRM-1643e (water) was also analyzed (Table S1). For the metals determined in sediments by AAS, mass fractions of Ni, Cu, Cd, Hg, and Pb in method blanks were 0.034, 0.0, 0.022, 0.0016, and 0.14 mg.kg−1, respectively. The spike recoveries were from 88 to 99%.
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 160, November 2020, 111649
Journal