• Mineralogical characterization of sediments is a screening for heavy metal contamination to some extent. With sediment grain sizes decreasing, the specific surface of sediment increases that result in elevation of the adsorption capacity for elements. We can determine combined linkage between atoms by FTIR while it is impossible to determine an element with FTIR. FTIR only can be used to test the compound with element radicals. A convenient method for quantifying heavy metal contamination is X-ray fluorescence spectrometer which has simple sample preparation.

Thanks Mr. Xuejun. Yours prediction is fine, at the same i think we can go  for correlation  between minerals and associated heavy metals using  FTIR and X-ray florescence. Tell me your suggestion in this regard

XRF can be used to identify contamination as long as you know that the contaminant-metal in question is not naturally a component of the minerals in the potentially contaminated sediment, or as long as you can subtract any natural noise.

Thanks Mr. Kenton. At the same what i expect that when we get better correlational results then can we think for the next stage i.e minerals affinity to certain heavy metals?

It is a little bit difficult to determine the relationship between the certain mineral and heavy metals to my knowledge because ordinary sediments are mainly composed of quartz, feldspar and clay minerals with minor heavy minerals mainly including amphibole, zoisite. Of course, we can determine the mineral compositions with FTIR or XRD and test the heavy metals with XRF and try to study correlation between certain mineral and certain heavy metal through observing the variation of infrared spectrum.