Preliminary results on the intensification of the BCR sequential extraction with sonication for sediments, soils, and gravitation dust sediment samples

This study deals with the problems of intensification of sequential extraction scheme, proposed by the European Community Bureau of Reference (BCR). The conventional extraction procedure has been modified by applying ultrasound energy from the titanium probe with the aim to shorten the long required extraction time. In this article we concentrated only on the first step of this extraction scheme, which has been applied for the fractionation of Ca, Mg, Fe (matrix elements) and Zn, Pb, Cu (trace elements) in sediment and soil samples collected in a typical agricultural region, and gravitation dust sample collected in a typical industrial region. The content of elements in extracts of conventional and ultrasound-assisted extraction was determined by FAAS. The results obtained from conventional extraction confirmed the differences among studied samples. In the soil sample adequate forms of only Ca and Mg (matrix elements) were detected, in the sediment samples was Ca, Mg, Fe, and Zn, and in the sample of grav...