Characterization of Heavy Metal Contamination in Soil Using XRF

Heavy metal contamination of soil has resulted from a wide variety of industrial, commercial and mining practices. The contaminants are often invisible and clean-up or remediation depends upon being able to accurately identify and map the contamination. The cost of conventional laboratory sampling and testing is often prohibitive in terms of dollars and time, and thus limits an investigators ability to fully understand the nature and/or extent of site contamination. Modern X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology provides investigators a real time analysis method that can be used insitu. Portable XRF spectrometers that can be carried into the field are now readily available and tools have been configured for cone penetrometer work allowing for subsurface investigation. Laboratory atomic absorption and XRF analysis data for a comprehensive Pb in clean sand calibration and analysis data set are presented. The XRF data obtained rivaled the laboratory data over the range of concentrations analyzed.