Journal of Laboratory Chemical Education 2014, 2(1): 4-9 DOI: 10.5923/j.jlce.20140201.02 Developing an Environmental Analysis of Soils and Water by Spectrochemical Techniques for Undergraduate Students of Chemistry Jesús Anzano * , LeyreAbia, Minerva Aragonés, Elena Ballano, Beatriz Guzmán, Mª Luisa Lomero, Catalina Pena, Elisa Pérez Laser laboratory, Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Zaragoza, Pedro Cerbuna #12, 50009, Zaragoza, Spain Abstract Quantification of heavy metals (Cr, Cu, Zn, K, Ca, Fe and Mn) in water and soils samples was performed through atomic and molecular spectrometry. The validity of three leaching agents (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, acetic acid and deionized water) was compared in soil samples to potassium, calcium, iron and manganese by means of atomic spectrometry. Acetic acid was the best leaching agent for all metals except for iron, and EDTA was the second best. Two experiments were developed for water samples. First, precipitation was used to separate toxic metals and, secondly, the speciation of Cr (III) and Cr (VI) was carried out using diphenylcarbazide and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid to set up complexes selectively. It was proved that the removal of Cr, Cu and Zn by precipitation of the hydroxide was effective obtaining low ranks. Keywords Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy, Determination, Potassium, Calcium, Iron, Manganese, Chrome, Cupper, Zinc, Soil, Water 1. Introduction Nowadays, the presence of heavy metals in the environment is a very interesting issue, due to their persistence in soils and waters[1]. Considerable amounts of polluting metals are accumulated yearly. Soil and water are among the valuable common properties societies try to preserve the most, but they can be polluted by household, industrial or farming wastes. Heavy metals are among the polluting substances, usually coming from industrial processes such as paint production or chroming[2]. From a chemical point of view, heavy metals contain elements known as transition and post-transition. Those elements are significantly heavier than light metals like K or Na. Some of them are animal and plant nutrients but they are toxic in high concentrations. For example, trivalent chromium is an essential oligoelement and its deficiency causes diabetes and other adverse effects in the body. However, hexavalent chromium is extremely toxic, as it causes allergy, breath and liver deficiency, mutations and cancer[3]. Because of these harmful effects in the long and short-term, maximum admissible concentrations of the * Corresponding author: janzano@unizar.es (Jesús Anzano) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/jlce Copyright © 2014 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved seions in drinking water, publicor industrial discharges must be regulated by the applicable laws. Toxic concentration limits are different to each metal and depend on the kind of ion and its physiological and environmental effects. European law (Directive 98/83/CE, 3 of November of 1998, relating to drinking water quality published in DOCE L Nº 330, 5 of December of 1998) fix chromium (0.05 mg/L) and cupper limits (2 mg/L) in drinking water. Zinc does not have risk level in water but World Health Organization lay down 5 mg/L as a legal limit. On the other hand, law 22/2011 (28 of July, of wastes and contaminated soils) and law 1/2005 (4 of February, of prevention and correction to soils contamination) regulate contaminated agents in soils[4, 5]. Analytic techniques for metal analysis in soils and water samples are varied; their election depends on the metal concentration grade and its nature. Usual techniques are: Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS-Flame), Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (GFAAS), Inductively Coupled Plasma - Atomic Emission Spectrometer (ICP-AES), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Multielement analysis and automatic techniques result particularly useful because they generate big data series and they need minimum effort and time[6]. This article contains two different parts: metal determination in soils and in water. In our case, we search