Heavy Metal Speciation in Soils from the janghang Smelter Area

장항 제련소 지역 토양의 중금속 오염에 대한 환경광물학적 연구

The Janghang smelter is the first lead, zinc and copper smelting facility in Korea which was operated for a half century from 1936 to 1989. The clay minerals and their heavy metal association in the soil profile around the smelter have been studied using XRD, EPMA, SEM-EDS, TEM, EPR and sequential extraction techniques. The soils in A horizon are highly acidic showing pH 4.45. The pH is going up with increasing depth. They have residual water contents of 1.18-1.51 wt%, loss on ignition of 6.32-7.79 wt%, and carbon contents of 0.08-0.88 wt%. Soils consist of quartz, feldspar, muscovite, kaolinite, vermiculite, biotite, chlorite, goethite and hematite in the decreasing abundance. The contents of clay minerals, especially vermiculite and chlorite, decrease with increasing depth. Sequential extraction experiments for the profile samples show that heavy metals (Zn, Cu, Pb, Cd) are highly concentrated in the A horizon of the soil profile as water-extractable (mostly amorphous), MgCl2-extractable (exchangeable in clay minerals), and organic phases. The heavy metal contents decrease with increasing depth. It suggests that the heavy metals are mainly associate with clay minerlas in an exchangeable state. It is also noted that heavy metals are highly concentrated in the manganese and iron oxide phases.