New Indices Determining Heavy Metals Migration in a Sewage Sludge

The four step procedure developed by the European Community Bureau of Reference (BCR) is the optimum means of identifying heavy metal fractions in sewage sludge samples. Using the BCR procedure enables to get the date basing on which one can calculate metal stability index which supplies information on the strength of metal bonds with mineral organic soil components. Unfortunately, very popular formulae describing this index do not possess any theoretical justification and do not generate all values in the range of [0; 1]. Hence, in this paper one has presented new formulae describing not only the stability index but also a strictly connected with it the mobility index. In addition, one has suggested that these new formulae depend on the Equivalent Population (EP) indicator.