article · BIMA JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY GOMBE
Petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in urban soils creates notable public health concerns, largely stemming from spills and the uncontrolled disposal of spent oil. An assessment of thirty soil samples across ten urban locations in Gombe metropolis examined contamination levels of naphthalene, a hazardous hydrocarbon compound. By optimising a spectrophotometric method at a detection wavelength of 221.8 nanometres, calibration curves enabled extrapolative concentration measurements. The findings revealed significant contamination across every sampled location, with measured levels ranging from 5.28 to 9.07 milligrams per kilogram. Most sites recorded levels between 8.39 and 8.96 milligrams per kilogram. All measured concentrations exceeded established regulatory intervention limits for urban soils, linking the widespread contamination directly to human activities involving petroleum and petroleum derivatives.
Naphthalene accumulation in urban soils from petroleum spills and improper oil disposal presents direct hazards to human health and local ecosystems. Demonstrating that soil contamination in Gombe metropolis consistently exceeds safety thresholds highlights the urgent necessity for environmental regulatory policies, routine monitoring programmes, and remediation measures to protect urban populations from prolonged exposure to toxic hydrocarbons.
The work demonstrates an applied, laboratory-tested spectrophotometric protocol for detecting naphthalene contamination in soils. Environmental testing laboratories, municipal regulators, and remediation service providers could use this testing approach to monitor urban pollution hotspots. Because the study focuses on analytical testing rather than an integrated commercial product, direct deployment remains at an applied research stage that requires standardisation for wider commercial environmental screening services.
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Petroleum hydrocarbon pollution of urban soils in advancing countries is on the rise as a result creating a public health concern. Urban soil pollution with hydrocarbons mostly originate from diverse anthropogenic sources including petroleum and petroleum products spills and uncontrolled disposal of spent oil in the environment. This study focused on the spectrophotometric analysis of naphthalene in thirty urban soils sampled from 10 urban sites with dissimilar anthropogenic pollution sources in Gombe metropolis. Spectrophotometric detection of naphthalene was optimized to enable the construction of a standard calibration curve using naphthalene standards and further applicability in determining naphthalene concentrations from prepared samples via automatic extrapolative determination. Naphthalene was detected optimally at 221.8 nm wavelength and further detection from soil samples produced significantly varied naphthalene concentrations from all the ten urban sites portraying 5.28 and 9.07 mg/kg as the lowest and highest naphthalene concentration loading from sites 4 and 6 respectively. However, naphthalene concentration levels in other sites were close with a range from 8.39 to 8.96 mg/kg and depicted significance from sites 4 and 6. Naphthalene concentrations in all the sites were high above the established allowable or intervention limits for urban soils. The naphthalene pollution is majorly attributed to human anthropogenic activities relating to the use of petroleum, petroleum products and derivatives. There is a need for regulatory policies and routine monitoring of urban sites with anthropogenic pollution sources that could overburden urban soils with petroleum hydrocarbons which are hazardous to humans and other receptors onsite.
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DOI: 10.64290/bima.v9i1a.889
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