The Science of the Total Environment 293 (2002) 47–57 0048-9697/02/$ - see front matter  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0048-9697 Ž 01 . 01137-8 Platinum levels in natural and urban soils from Rome and Latium (Italy): significance for pollution by automobile catalytic converter D. Cinti , M. Angelone *, U. Masi , C. Cremisini a b, a b Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universita ‘La Sapienza’, 00185 Rome, Italy a ` ENEA, TEIN CHIM, C.R.Casaccia, V. Anguillarese 301, 00060 S. M. Di Galeria, Rome, Italy b Received 25 September 2001; accepted 7 December 2001 Abstract Platinum concentrations in topsoil samples collected in 1992 (48) and in 2001 (16) from the urban area of Rome have been determined by ICP–MS. Concentrations in 47 soil samples collected in 1992 from natural sites of Latium (an area around Rome) have been determined for a first assessment of natural background levels. The Pt concentrations in Rome urban soils collected in 1992 range from 0.8 to 6.3 ngyg ( s3.8"1.0) overlapping the concentration range ¯ X of natural soils from Latium ( s3.1"2.1 ngyg). No significant correlation has generally been found between Pt ¯ X contents in the ‘natural’ soils and related bedrock or major pedogenetic parameters. These results suggest that there is no evidence of Pt pollution in Rome urban soils at that time, because the massive use of the automobile catalytic converter has only just started. Higher (up to six times more) Pt concentrations, than those measured in the 1992 samples, have been measured, in some cases, in Rome urban soils collected in 2001, suggesting a possible start of Pt accumulation because of the large-scale use in the last decade of automobile catalytic converters. At the same time, a clear decrease of lead levels in Rome urban soils with respect to the levels measured in 1992 has been observed, paralleling the decreasing number of lead gasoline-fuelled cars. Here we present one of the first systematic studies for defining background levels of Pt in Italian natural soils, thus allowing for monitoring, in the future, should any possible Pt pollution caused by the use of automobile catalytic converter, especially in urban soils, occur.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Automobile catalytic converters; ICP–MS; Platinum; Natural soils; Urban soils; Rome; Latium 1. Introduction The large-scale introduction of the catalytic converters, aimed at replacing leaded gasoline with ‘green’ gasoline, started in Italy towards the end *Corresponding author. E-mail address: angelone@casaccia.enea.it (M. Angelone). of the 1980s. Although the introduction of catalytic converters results in the lead pollution level decreasing in the air, this device is not totally ‘clean’. In fact, it can release other elements to the air, including platinum (Konig et al., 1992 Gomez et al., 2001). Because Pt is not an atmo- phile element, once released to the air it ‘travels’ short distances, due to its mass and is deposited