Speciation of some metals in coastal sediments off Pahang during the pre and post monsoon seasons

Abstract

Sequential extraction was found to be the best method to study the pollution level in sediment compared to normalization and enrichment factor tests. Sediment samples were collected off the Pahang coastline during pre monsoon and post monsoon period. Five stations with relatively high clay contents were sampled for sequential extraction studies of Copper (Cu), Lead (Pb), Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe) and Aluminium (Al). The results during both monsoon seasons show a non-anthropogenic of analyze metals except Cu during post monsoon period. The major accumulation fractions observed for the heavy metal studied were residual fraction, bound to Fe-Mn hydroxides and bound to organic matter fraction. In general, the concentrations of metals were higher in the post monsoon season except for Mn and Fe. This related to the influence of the monsoon season on sediment.