Multi-scale characterisation of the bearing phases of the metallic pollutants Zn and Pb in a deposited sediment : from field studies to synchrotron radiation analysis
Sediments originating from periodic dredging of waterways were traditionally deposited on soil without specific precaution or planed treatments. It may be of environmental concern especially when they came from areas historically contaminated with metallic pollutants like in the north French coal basin which is also well industrialised. The main risk is a migration Metallic Trace Elements (MTE) in the underlying soil and groundwater. This study aims to identify and characterise the mineralogical bearing phases of the MTE (limited here to Zn et Pb) by combining various techniques, analytical, chemical and spectroscopic. In this work, we show that in the case of a complex material as our studied anthroposol, it is important to have a multi-scale. Then, we have carried out field analyses, laboratory studies Sequential chemical extraction, XRD, SEM and EPMA) and synchrotron radiation experiment (mainly XRF and XANES). We have indentified various bearing phases of Zn and Pb, but we didn’t observe any clear evolution as a function of the depth. To conclude, we give several directions for completing this work.