Acid Sulfate Soils

The aim of this thesis work was to analyse the leachate for metals such as Cobalt, Nickel, Lithium, and Zinc through Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. Furthermore, the leaching results were com-pared with the background values to determine the loss of these metals from soil to water during oxidation and leaching. The thesis further describes the formation of acid sulfate soil, which corre-sponds to the geochemistry of metastable iron sulfide, elemental S, sulfate, and organic S and py-rite. In the laboratory experiment, preparation of the soil samples for Atomic Absorption Spectrometry analysis is presented. The initial set up starts with incubation and involves several steps such as pH measurement, drying, centrifugation, filtration, and acidification. The theoretical approach details the acid sulfate soil with its worldwide distribution as well as the essential indicators such as vegeta-tion, water, soil, and infrastructure. The redox chemistry for the formation of acid sulfate soils and necessary redox conditions are presented. Lastly, the environmental impacts on vegetation, aquatic habitats, and human beings, as well as the management of these soils, are presented. The lab results and conclusions section present three different zones for AS soils which are oxidiz-ing, transitional and reduction zone. The metals amount is highly presented in reduced zones but leaching of metals occurs excessively from oxidized zones. Among these metals, cobalt is highly leached with its maximum value of 80% while zinc is least leached with 0%