Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

i have a science project to test weather our soil is contaminated or not and we have to prove it is contaminated
so how to find a single contaminant of a soil oursellf ( low budget ) without help of scientist thank u

Hi,

This sounds like a great project idea

First, you have to decide what the soil could be contaminated with, or what contaminants are you concerned with? A common concern is lead in the soil, so perhaps you would be inspired by this past q&a, here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... php?t=6679

Or let me know what contaminants you are thinking about and we can help you further.

Tonya

The most accurate way to test for contaminants in soil is to extract the metals and to analyze them using atomic absorption or atomic emission spectrophotometers. However, these equipment are very expensive, and I do not know if you have access to any particular lab. For your experiment, I might recommend using a certified test kit. These kits are available on the market and do not produce more than 5% negatives, but they only operate on a 5000 ppm range. Perhaps you can test for lead contamination. Soil can contain up to 400 ppm of lead and still be considered safe, so I am assuming that lead concentrations up to 1000 ppm may be unsafe.