Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 23 No 4 (2019): 736 – 747

DOI: 10.17576/mjas-2019-2304-20

 

 

 

ANALYSIS OF HEAVY METAL CONCENTRATIONS IN BALLAST WATER AND SEAWATER AT TANJUNG PELEPAS PORT

 

(Analisis Kandungan Kepekatan Logam Berat dalam Air Balast dan Air Laut di Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas)

 

Jacqueline Chong Kar Xin¹, Sharina Abu Hanifah^1,2*, Nor Aishah Salleh²,  Normazida Rozi¹, Norfaizan Padli²

 

¹Centre for Advanced Materials and Renewable Resources, Faculty of Science and Technology

²Centre for Water Research and Analysis, Faculty of Science and Technology

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

 

*Corresponding author:  sharina@ukm.edu.my

 

 

Received: 31 March 2018; Accepted: 17 April 2019

 

 

Abstract

Ballast water is water kept in the ballast tank of ships in order to increase its stability and balance during shipping. Although it helps in maintaining the ships’ stability and safety, the exchange of ballast water causes the spreading of heavy metals present in the ballast tank to the surrounding seawater. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the spreading of heavy metals from ballast water taken from numerous countries and released at the Port Tanjung Pelepas. A comparison was done between seawater and ballast water samples using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and the data were statistically analysed using Microsoft Excel. The results showed that Fe and Zn were detected at high concentrations in ballast water, while Fe was also highly concentrated in seawater. Besides that, this study found out that changes in weather is one of the factors that contribute to the differences in heavy metal concentrations in seawater.

 

Keywords:  seawater, ballast water, heavy metals, statistical analysis

 

Abstrak

Air balast ialah air yang dibawa oleh sesebuah kapal dalam tangki balast untuk meningkatkan kestabilan dan keseimbangan semasa pelayaran. Akan tetapi, sistem pertukaran air balast juga akan menyebabkan kandungan logam berat dalam tangki balast tersebar kepada air persekitaran iaitu air laut. Oleh itu, kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti penyebaran logam berat dalam air balast yang diambil dari pelbagai negara dan dilepaskan ke Pelabuhan Tanjung Pelepas. Perbandingan di antara sampel air persekitaran iaitu air laut dengan air balast telah dilakukan dengan menggunakan alat spektrometer pancaran plasma gandingan aruhan (ICP-OES) dan data yang diperoleh dianalisis secara statistik oleh Microsoft Excel. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa Fe dan Zn dikesan mempunyai kepekatan paling tinggi dalam air balast manakala Fe pula mempunyai kepekatan paling tinggi dalam air laut. Selain itu, kajian ini juga mendapati bahawa perubahan cuaca merupakan salah satu faktor kepada perbezaan kepekatan logam berat air laut.

 

Kata kunci:  air laut, air balast, logam berat, analisis statistik

 

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