Elemental Studies of Soil and Food Flour for Risk Assessment of Highway Pollution Using Particle-Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) Spectrometry

The study investigated potential toxic elements in soils and food flours for highway pollution using PIXE spectrometry. The contaminated soils and cassava food flours contained higher levels of the elements than their control samples, while comparison with their standard permissible limits followed similar trend which was attributable to anthropogenic influences. These were corroborated by their elevated Enrichment factor, Pollution index and Geoaccumulation index values for the elements, suggesting significant anthropogenically—derived contaminations of the soils. T-test value (0.038) for the elemental composition of the contaminated soils & cassava flours was significant due to considerable higher concentrations of the elements in the soils than the cassava flours. Cross plot analysis result for the contaminated soils and cassava fours showed moderate positive correlation (R2 = 0.426), indicating inter-element relationship between them. Cluster analysis results for the analyzed elements in the contaminated soil samples indicated that Mn, Fe, V, Cr, Zn, Cl, Ti and S showed closest inter-element clustering and was corroborated by the results of Pearson correlation matrices, while inter-element clustering in the food flour followed the same trend and was also supported by their results of Pearson correlation matrices, validating that the soils and cassava flours were contaminated via similar sources.