مؤسسة الشرق الأوسط للنشر العلمي
عادةً ما يتم الرد في غضون خمس دقائق
The present study aimed to evaluate the levels of heavy metals in leaves of five plants Eucalyptus gomphocephala, Olea europaea, Pinus halepensis, Nicotiana glauca and Ricinus communis surrounding AlHawari cement factory(polluted site) in Benghazi, Libya with comparison in plants away from the factory used as control(unpolluted site). Samples of these plant leaves were collected, treated, and then assayed for Zinc(Zn), Copper(Cu), Cadmium(Cd) and lead(Pb) using atomic Absorption spectrometry(AAS). The values obtained were compared against the permissible limits established by the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization(WHO), the results revealed the significant higher accumulation of all heavy metals in polluted plants in comparison with unpolluted plants, except for Pb in E.gomphocephala leaves, which implies that the source of these metals as pollutants cannot be attributed to the cement factory only but may be also to vehicular traffic. On the other hand, all metals concentration in both sites were below the WHO/FAO, Only concentration of Cd exceeded the WHO limits collected from the polluted site. In general, the mean concentration of heavy metals followed this pattern Zn> Cu> Pb >Cd. Positive correlation were recorded for most of these metals, indicating that they might be derived from similar sources . Ricinus communis showed the ability to absorbed accumulate of heavy metals in leaves when compared to other plants. This is attributed to its high biomass production, strong absorption and accumulation for heavy metals. As a result, it is an effective bioindicator for industrial area and can be used in phytoremediation applications for further research.