A procedure to evaluate the factors determining the elemental composition of PM2.5. Case study: the Veneto region (northeastern Italy)

Abstract

It is the Editorial Policy of Environmental Science and Pollution Research to periodically publish a Special Issue to communicate to a broad constituency of the scientific community timely information about specific topics in the environmental sciences. A Special Issue consists of assembled papers that both identify and describe the status and extent of our knowledge concerning new or existing ecotoxicological problems. This is the case of ground-level ozone, primarily an air pollutant, which is of high concern in Europe due to its effects on human health, vegetation and materials. Ozone is not directly emitted into the atmosphere; instead, it is formed from chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight, following emissions of precursor gases. Meteorological conditions play essential rules in these reaction chains and also influence the transport of ozone and its precursors, so that year-to-year differences in pollution levels may be relevant (EEA 2016).On November 24, 2016, the Italian scientific community involved in the study of the interactions between plants and tropospheric ozone gathered at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa. This event took place 10 years later another meeting on the very same topics, hold at the same University. Attendance was high, with more than 150 selected participants, belonging to around 20 institutions scattered nationwide. The objective of the conference was to provide a technical and scientific get-together for the academicians and scientists for reciprocating the specific advances/recent findings in the areas of ecology, plant physiology, phytopathology, applied botany, atmospheric chemistry/physics, environmental modelling and allied disciplines.The Italian scientific production on the subjects dealing with the relationships between plants/ecosystems and ground-level ozone is relevant. As an example, the Scopus database (updated at mid November 2016) lists, for the period 2007-2016, more about 4000 documents when the keyword strings Bozone plant^and/or BO 3 plant^are queried: about 130 of them are produced by Italian scientists. So doing, Italy is at the third place worldwide, behind USA and China. Forest plants and shadow urban trees are the most investigated groups of plants; very poor attention is payed to fruit species. Investigation protocols span from free controlled exposure systems to open-top chambers, fumigation chambers in walk-in controlled-environment conditions and cuvette; study areas cover from the molecular to the ecosystem level the ecophysiology of stressed plants, tritrophic relationships, secondary metabolism, emission of volatile compounds and gas fluxes, quality of products, in addition to ozone metrics and biological monitoring, with related campaigns of environmental education.A general debate was started during the conference. As an end point, a position paper was launched, whose outstanding points are hereunder reported.(i) At least eight out of the 17 goals selected by the United Nations for a Sustainable...

Metal Ion Release from Fine Particulate Matter Sampled in the Po Valley to an Aqueous Solution Mimicking Fog Water: Kinetics and Solubility

“…Also results of Armiento et al (2013) were taken into account for comparison; they analysed the PM 2.5 fraction collected in another Italian city (Rome) in the year 2011-2012. These values, shown in Table 3, were even more similar to ours than those of Benetello et al (2018). It is also worth noting that in the present work the analysis and detection of more PM elements, than in cited papers, was possible thanks to the two-step procedure developed for the ICP-MS analysis of the total elemental content.…”

“…Median values of soluble metal ions and total element content are reported in Table 3. Benetello et al (2018) analysed the PM 2.5 of Padua sampled in the year 2012-2013: results are given as well in Table 3 for comparison. Differences between values from Benetello et al (2018) and those of the present study were very modest.…”

“…Benetello et al (2018) analysed the PM 2.5 of Padua sampled in the year 2012-2013: results are given as well in Table 3 for comparison. Differences between values from Benetello et al (2018) and those of the present study were very modest. Also results of Armiento et al (2013) were taken into account for comparison; they analysed the PM 2.5 fraction collected in another Italian city (Rome) in the year 2011-2012.…”

“…If PM is in contact with environmental or physiological solutions, the substances contained in the particles may be released, thus becoming bio-accessible and potentially toxic to living organisms and human tissues. For this reason, a very large number of papers have been or are being published in which the release of selected elements from PM to simulated physiological fluids was investigated (Benetello et al, 2018;Catalani et al, 2018;Dehghani et al, 2018;Gao et al, 2018;Hernández-Pellón et al, 2018;Huang et al, 2018;Kastury et al, 2018a, b;Nie et al, 2018;Pelfrêne and Douay, 2018;Wiseman et al, 2018;Berlinger et al, 2019;Du et al, 2019;Hernández-Pellón et al, 2019;Luo et al, 2019;Tang et al, 2019;Xing et al, 2019). For a list of older references see the review by Mukhtar and Limbeck (2013).…”

“…In these literature studies, the elemental solubility at equilibrium has been obtained. Solubilities depended on the element, on the season, on which species were loaded on the particle, on the distance of the sampling site from the element source, on the PM size, on the solution pH, and on pre-existing components in aqueous solution (Benetello et al, 2018;Dehghani et al, 2018;Gao et al, 2018, Hernández-Pellón et al, 2018Kastury et al, 2018a, b;Pelfrêne and Douay, 2018;Hernández-Pellón et al, 2019;Xie et al, 2019;Xing et al, 2019).…”