Analysis of Physico-Chemical Characteristics and Heavy Metals Content in Water Samples Utilizing Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry in Kafin Hausa, Jigawa State, Nigeria

Heavy metals contamination of ground, stream, and river water ecosystems is a worldwide environmental problem (Sekabira et al., 2010), and between the wide diversity of contaminants affecting water resources, heavy metals receive particular concern considering their strong toxicity even at low concentrations (Marcovecchio et al., 2007). The levels of heavy metals in surface, ground, and tap water samples collected in Kafin Hausa were determined using Atomic Absorption spectrophotometry, whereas nitrate, ammonium, and phosphate ions were analysed using spectrophotometric methods. The following ranges were obtained for Mn (0.032±0.001 to 0.092±0.001 mg/l), Fe (0.029±0.001 to 0.051±0.001 mg/l), Pb (0.017±0.001 to 0.0095±0.001 mg/l), Cu (0.016±0.001 to 0.032±0.001 mg/l), Cd (0 to 0.0055±0.001 mg/l), Zn (0.016±0.001 to 0.032±0.001 mg/l), NO3-N (1.16±0.261 to 1.55±0.232 mg/l), PO4-P (0.596±0.267 to 1.26±0.502 mg/l) and NH4-N (0.700±0.041 to 0.771±0.094 mg/l), pH (8.2±0.1 to 8.4±0.1), EC (134.7±0.5 to 161.6±0.4 µS/cm), Temperature (26.5±0.00 to 27.8±0.00 oC) and TDS (64.9±0.3 to 80.8±0.2 mg/l). The results of this study showed that out of those metals and anions analyzed only that of PO43 exceeded the permissible limit of good portable water set by NAFDAC/WHO (2011) in all the samples analyzed.