Author(s)

Khageshwar Singh Patel¹, Reetu Sharma¹, Nohar Singh Dahariya¹, Ankit Yadav¹, Borislav Blazhev², Laurent Matini³, Jon Hoinkis⁴

¹School of Studies in Chemistry/Environmental Science, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, India.
²Central Laboratory for Chemical Testing and Control, Sofia, Bulgaria.
³Department of Exact Sciences, E.N.S., Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville, Congo.
⁴Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, Karlsruhe, Germany.

The study of heavy metal (HM_s) contamination of environment is of great interest due to their serious health hazard. In this work, the contamination of tree leaves with the HM_s in the most polluted industrial city, Korba, India is described. The leaves of common trees i.e. Azadirachta indica, Butea monosperma, Eucalyptus, Ficus religiosa, Mangifera indica and Tectona grandis were selected for assessment of the HM_s contamination as bioindicator. The elevated concentration of HM_s (i.e. As, Fe, Cr, Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb and Hg) in the tree leaves was observed, ranging from 2.8 - 43, 728 - 5182, 8.6 - 49, 48 - 1196, 43 - 406, 79 - 360, 1.12 - 1.65, 1.6 - 16.4 and 0.13 - 0.76 mg/kg, respectively. The concentration, enrichment and sources of the HM_s in the leaves are described. Azadirachta indica leaves, accumulating higher concentration of the HM_s, showed a higher efficiency as bioindicator for the urban pollution.

Heavy Metal, Soil, Tree Leaf, Bioindicator, India

Patel, K. , Sharma, R. , Dahariya, N. , Yadav, A. , Blazhev, B. , Matini, L. and Hoinkis, J. (2015) Heavy Metal Contamination of Tree Leaves. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 6, 687-693. doi: 10.4236/ajac.2015.68066.