Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Quantification of Heavy Metals and Other Inorganic Contaminants on the Productivity of Microalgae
Published on: July 10, 2015
Geochemical assessment and spatial analysis of heavy metals pollution around coal-fired power station
Vitaly G Linnik1, Tatiana M Minkina2, Tatiana V Bauer2
1Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, 119991.
Abstract:
Coal-fired power stations are significant sources of soil contamination with heavy metals and a source of hazard to human health. The soil samples (n = 25) selected in the area around Novocherkassk Power Station (Rostov Region, Russia) within a radius of up to 20 km revealed the enrichment with Pb, Cu and Zn. The heavy metals (HM) content in soil is reduced in the following sequence: Mn > Cr > Zn > Ni > Cu > Pb > Co. The correlation diagrams of the HM total content in soils revealed a significant association between the following HM pairs: Cu-Pb, Ni-Cu, Cd-Ni, Cd-Cu (r ≥ 0.7, p < 0.001). The concentration coefficient (Kc) and the total pollution coefficient (Zc) were used to estimate anthropogenic pollution. The use of generalized additive model (GAM) to detect the dependence of HM distribution on factors revealed the significance of the source distance. The influence of wind rhumb on HM distribution has a complex nonlinear nature. A GAM shows a good performance for all data sets: R2 = 0.71, 81% deviance explained for Zn, R2 = 0.85, 91% deviance explained for Cd, R2 = 0.63, 70% deviance explained for Ni. Thus, GAM model reveals significant factors (Dist_km, rhumb) in forming pollution by heavy metals in studied impact zone and proved a valuable approach to assess the degree and sources of pollution in soils on a large scale.
Related Concept Videos
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Fuels
Nuclear fuel consists of a fissile isotope, such as uranium-235, which must be present in sufficient quantity to provide a...
Bonding in Metals
Metallic Solids
All metallic solids exhibit high thermal and electrical conductivity, metallic luster, and malleability....
Alkali Metals
Table 1: Properties of the alkali metals
Power
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...

