Automated mineralogy has been used to quantitatively determine the contaminant partitioning in the soil particulates originating from heavily polluted mining/smelting sites. This method provides faster data acquisition, the full integration of the quantitative EDS data and better detection limits for the elements of interest. AutoSEM was found to be a useful tool for the determination of the modal phase distribution and element partitioning in the metal(loid)-bearing (As, Cu, Pb, Zn) soil particulates and will definitely find more applications in environmental soil sciences in the future.

Tuhý M., Hrstka T., Ettler V., Automated mineralogy for quantification and partitioning of metal(loid)s in particulates from mining/smelting-polluted soils. Environmental Pollution 266: 115118. (DOI) (open-access)