Premium
Leaves of Orange Jasmine ( Murraya paniculata ) as Indicators of Airborne Heavy Metal in Bangkok, Thailand
Author(s) -
Titseesang Teerawet,
Wood Timothy,
Panich Noppaporn
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1454.021
Subject(s) - environmental chemistry , orange (colour) , metal , heavy metals , pollution , chemistry , inductively coupled plasma , significant difference , manganese , environmental science , ecology , biology , physics , plasma , food science , statistics , organic chemistry , mathematics , quantum mechanics
Orange jasmine ( Murraya paniculata ) leaves were collected from three different sites in the area of Bangkok and in a remote area as a control site. The leaf samples were digested and the concentrations of Cu, Fe, Pb, Mn, Ni, Cr, and Zn were then quantified by using inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometry (ICP–AES). All three Bangkok sites were polluted with heavy metals compared with the background site. Fe was found as the highest mean concentration of the metals studied, while Pb was the lowest. There was a high correlation coefficient between metals Cu‐Mn, Cu‐Zn, Cu‐Pb, and Mn‐Zn. However, Fe was not correlated with other metals. There was no significant difference in Pb between sites. The significant difference in other metals found in the study could be attributed to different anthropogenic activities between sites. The principal‐component analysis (PCA) identified two factors according to the sources of metals making up the anthropogenic (traffic) and natural (soil) sources. Traffic emission was found to be the main source of metal pollution in the atmosphere of Bangkok.