Identification of Elements Exist in Area Around Khartoum Petroleum Refinery Using Spectroscopic Method

Abstract

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a method of atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) that uses a laser-generated plasma as the hot vaporization, atomization, and excitation source. Plasma is often called the fourth state of matter. The various states of matter occur as a substance is heated to temperatures corresponding to thermal energies above the binding energies for particular state of matter. Structured systems placed in a sufficiently hot environment. LIBS technique was applied to identify the elements exist in 13 samples of surface soil. Plant leaves (Ziziphus spina-christi—Sidr plant) and jars water (ten samples for each) collected from the area around Khartoum Petroleum Refinery. The survey process appears that some samples contain toxic elements such as sulfur (S), phosphor (P), chromium (Cr) and barium (Ba), heavy like lead (Pb), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), platinum (Pt), promethium (Pm) and gadolinium (Gd) and radioactive elements like technetium (Tc), protactinium (Pa) and uranium (U). LIBS spectra show that all samples containing technetium (Tc), neon (Ne) and chromium (Cr). Technetium (Tc) has higher intensity than neon (Ne) and chromium (Cr). Technetium (Tc) is artificial element and has no health effects. Exposure to neon (Ne) can cause fatigue, vision disturbance, headache, confusion, dizziness and lack of oxygen, chromium (Cr) contact can irately nose, throat and it can burn skin and eyes with possible damages, it can also have effect on liver and kidneys, chromium powder is flammable and it may spontaneously explode in air. It was noted that the intensity of LIBS spectra varying according to type of sample in addition to amount of element exist in area under study.