Assessment of An Atmospheric Heavy Metal From A Transport Pool Within the Ilorin Metropolis, Nigeria

Emission from a high density of vehicles has become a subject of interestand great concern for the assessment of local air quality within the ilorin metropolis,nigeria. this study aims to determine possible heavy metal pollution from vehicularemission along the major transport pool within the ilorin metropolis. depositiongauges were placed on a pole above human breathing height at 1.5 m at selected majorroundabouts within the ilorin metropolis. gauges were planted for one month (april27th to may 30th, 2020) during the covid-19 lockdown and one month (january 15thto february 14th, 2021) after the covid-19 lockdown. the collected samples wererinsed with deionized water, filtered, and dried in a desiccator. the dried samples werecharacterized using energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence (edxrf). twenty-one heavymetals were detected from all sampling locations. the total sum concentrations of theheavy metals recorded during and after the covid-19 lockdown were 1018.58785 and1359.15479 mg.m-3, respectively. the averaged measured concentration of most of theheavy metals sampled along selected major roundabouts within the ilorin metropolisduring and after covid-19 lockdown exceeded the permissible emission limit. thedeposition flux (df) of the measured heavy metals ranged from 4.53 to 8.91 g.m^-2.month-1 during the lockdown and from 6.23 to 29.55 g.m^-2.month^-1 after the lockdown.the enrichment factor and concentration ratio were also determined. the results of bothindicated that heavy metal pollutions originated from multiple similar anthropogenicsources, and photochemical degradation was active in all the sampling locations. thisstudy suggested the need to shift from a fossil fuel economy to a hydrogen economy tomitigate heavy metal pollutions from vehicular emissions to the barest minimum.