A 10-year observation of PM2.5-bound nickel in Xi’an, China: Effects of source control on its trend and associated health risks

Abstract

This study presents the first long term (10-year period, 2004–2013) datasets of PM2.5-bound nickel (Ni) concentration obtained from the daily sample in urban of Xi’an, Northwestern China. The Ni concentration trend, pollution sources, and the potential health risks associated to Ni were investigated. The Ni concentrations increased from 2004 to 2008, but then decreased due to coal consumption reduction, energy structure reconstruction, tighter emission rules and the improvement of the industrial and motor vehicle waste control techniques. With the comparison of distributions between workday and non-workday periods, the effectiveness of local and regional air pollution control policies and contributions of hypothetical Ni sources (industrial and automobile exhausts) were evaluated, demonstrating the health benefits to the populations during the ten years. Mean Ni cancer risk was higher than the threshold value of 10−6, suggesting that carcinogenic Ni still was a concern to the residents. Our findings conclude that there are still needs to establish more strict strategies and guidelines for atmospheric Ni in our living area, assisting to balance the relationship between economic growth and environmental conservation in China.

Assessment of Pollution and Health Risks of Heavy Metals in Particulate Matter and Road Dust Along the Road Network of Dhanbad, India

“…Chromium is mainly due to engine wear as Cr is one of the metallic components of engines, 68 , 69 whereas release of Cd is mainly due to engine wear and the burning of lubricant oil. 70 …”

“… 55 , 58 , 72 , 73 Nickel is produced from the combustion of fuel and is generated from engine wear. 69 , 70 Principal component 3 showed 16.04% of the total data variance with a high loading of Zn, Cd, and Fe. These are attributed to coal combustion.…”

Mercury stable isotope compositions of Chinese urban fine particulates in winter haze days: Implications for Hg sources and transformations

“…It has a humid, subtropical climate and a very low annual sunshine time of ~1000 hours. Randomly selected PM2.5 filters from each city were also analyzed for 13 other elements (S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, Pb) by Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) (PANalytical Epsilon 5, the Netherlands) at the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China, according to the method described in Xu et al (2012Xu et al ( , 2016Xu et al ( , 2017a.A portion of each filter was placed in a 15 mL vial containing 10 mL Milli-Q H2O to extract the water-soluble potassium ion (K + ). The vials were placed in an ultrasonic water bath and shaken with a mechanical shaker for 1 h. The extracts were then filtered through 0.45 μm pore size microporous membranes before K + concentration measurement in a Dionex-600 Ion…”

Chemical composition of rainwater harvested in East Malaysia

“…Despite nickel moderately loaded on this factor, the presence of this stand-alone metal without any toxic metals loaded in the third factor may explain, the abundance of nickel in the study area expected was emitted from multiple sources. In the study area, Nickel could possibly contributed from natural sources such as vegetation and sea salt [72], while the anthropogenic sources, including both stationary and mobile sources [73]. Therefore, this factor shows the origins of sea salt in this study derived from the sea salt spray and industrial activity.…”