Integration of chemical fractionation, Mosbauer spectrometry, and magnetic methods for identification of Fe phases bonding heavy metals in street dust

Street dust is one of the most important carriers of heavy metals(HMs)originating from natural and anthropogenic sources.The main purpose of the work was to identify which of Fe-bearing phases bind HMs in street dust.Magnetic parameters of the Fe-bearing components,mainly magnetically strong iron oxides,are used to assess the level of HM pollution.Chemical sequential extraction combined with magnetic methods(magnetic susceptibility,magnetization,remanent magnetization)allowed determining the metal-bearing fractions and identifying the iron forms that aremostly associated with traffic-related HMs.The use of Mossbauer spectrometry(MS)supplemented bymagnetic methods(thermomagnetic curves and psarameters of hysteresis loops)enabled precise identification and characterization of iron-containing minerals.The classification of HMs into five chemical fractions differing in mobility and bioaccessibility revealed that iron is most abundant(over 95%)in the residual fraction followed by the reducible fraction.HMs were present in reducible fraction in the following order:Pb>Zn>Mn>Cr>Ni>Fe>Cu,while they bound to the residual fraction in the following order:Fe>Ni>Cr>Mn>Pb>Cu>Zn.The signature of the anthropogenic origin of street dust is the presence of strongly nonstoichiometric and defected grains of magnetite and their porous surface.Magnetite also occurs as an admixture with maghemite,and with a significant proportion of hematite.A distinctive feature of street dust is the presence of metallic iron and iron carbides.Magnetic methods are efficient in the screening test to determine the level ofHMpollution,while MS helps to identify the iron-bearing minerals through the detection of iron.

Systematic study of the dependence of magnetic and structural properties of Nd2Fe14B powders on the average particle size

A systematic study of the magnetic and structural properties dependence on the particle size was realized.For this,commercial NdFeB powder was separated into five different mean particle sizes using sieves.Besides,from the original powder,eleven samples were also produced by mechanical milling assisted by surfactant,using various milling times.A total of sixteen samples were studied by scanning electron microscopy(SEM),X-ray diffraction(XRD),vibrating sample magnetometry(VSM),and Mdssbauer spectrometry(MS).The particle sizes of the samples vary from the micrometer to the nanometer scale.The crystallite size decreases with decreasing particle size.XRD result indicates that the Nd2Fe14B phase is found in all the samples,and the presence of this phase is also corroborated by MS using six sextets for fitting their spectra,with an additional singlet corresponding to the Nd1.1Fe4B4 phase.The mean hyperfine magnetic field increases with increasing particle size because the magnetic dipolar interaction between the magnetic moment of the particles increases with particle size.From the VSM measurements the magnetic energy density(BH)max values were calculated for different particle sizes,and their maximum value of 34.45 MGOe is obtained for the sample with the particle size of 60μm.