Speciation studies of tetraalkylleads and inorganic PbIIin polluted roadside vegetation and soil samples

The Gas chromatography‐atomic absorption spectrophotometric method has been used for the determination of tetraalkylleads in polluted roadside vegetation and soil samples. The method, which required very little sample preparation, gave precisions of 8.3% (TML) and 22% (TEL), which are adjudged acceptable. The detection limits (16.3–43.6 pg, Pb) for the alkylleads are sufficiently low for pollution monitoring applications. Results are presented for monitoring programmes in polluted soil and vegetation samples from Forder Valley road of Plymouth, England. Concentration of tetraalkylleads in vegetation varied from 0 to 3.52 ng/g for TML, and from 0 to 3.85 ng/g for TEL. The concentration in soil varied from 0.05 ng/g to 1.16 ng/g for TML and from 0 to 0.6 ng/g for TEL. The concentration of inorganic lead (PbII) varied from 15.2 μg/g to 209.2 μg/g in vegetation and from 89.6 μg/g to 1,506 μg/g in soil samples. The results of the isotope study by ICP‐MS indicated that the primary source of lead in vegetation is from airborne pollution while the primary source of lead in soil is from natural sources, although a minor contribution from air pollution is registered in the samples.