Determination of Heavy Metals from Laboratory Dusts in Science Village, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Dust particles are of great importance and of public health concern in the laboratory environment since students spend a long time in the laboratory conducting experiments and research. The exposure of students to heavy metals in the laboratory could expose them to certain health risks associated with heavy metals. Therefore, this research was carried out to determine the concentrations of heavy metals from laboratory dusts in Science Village, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Dust samples were collected from three different laboratories (Integrated Science, Biology and Chemistry Laboratories) to ascertain the concentrations of some heavy metals. After due laboratory pretreatment methods, the heavy metals were analyzed using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (Model SE-71906). The mean concentrations (mg/Kg) of the heavy metals studied were in the range Fe (1.1425±0.001-1.5403±0.024), Cu (0.4549±0.002-1.1906±0.018), Zn (0.2180±0.009-0.3582±0.009), Pb (0.1257±0.043-1.1057±0.029), Cd (0.0002±0.000-0.0086±0.000), Co (not detected-0.4933±0.009), Cr (0.6538±0.028-0.8813±0.053), Mn (not detected-0.4677±0.010) and Ni (0.0028±0.000-0.0845±0.000).The findings showed the order of occurrence of heavy metals in the laboratories were Integrated Science > Biology > Chemistry. The investigation also showed that all the heavy metal concentrations at various laboratories were lower than the background values given by DPR. Contamination factor analysis revealed that the heavy metals are at no risk or very low risk of occurrence. Appropriate measures should be put in place within the laboratory environment to keep the heavy metal concentrations low as in the case of this work in other to prevent any possible rise on the part of students or workers that make use of the laboratories.