Assessing the potential for lead release from road dusts and soils

Lead release from several soil and road dust samples -- obtained from various locations in the London Borough of Greenwich -- has been investigated as a function of acid and chloride addition. The work shows that lead retention in dust samples is primarily dependent upon buffer capacity, which in turn appears to be related to carbonate content. The continuing addition of acid eventually overcomes the buffer capacity of the system. At this point lead is rapidly released. For the soils investigated buffer capacities appear to be small and in these cases lead is readily released. The supplementary addition of chloride to the samples can have contrary effects upon release. For the dust samples chloride enhances lead release due, presumably, to the formation of chloro--lead complexes. However for one soil sample chloride hinders lead release possibly by binding anionic chloro--lead complexes to anionic exchange sites formed by the protonation of surface hydroxyl groups in the soil matrix.