A scoping study of component-specific toxicity of mercury in urban road dusts from three international locations

Abstract

This scoping study presents an investigation of the total and bioaccessible mercury concentrations in road dust (RD) from three international urban sites, where a one-off sampling campaign was conducted at each. This was done to address the hypothesis that the matrix in which mercury is found influences its ability to become accessible to the body once inhaled. For that purpose, the samples were analysed for total and pulmonary bioaccessible mercury and the data compared to the chemical structure of individual particles by SEM. The results obtained from this study suggest that a high mercury content does not necessarily equate to high bioaccessibility, a phenomenon which could be ascribed to the chemical character of the individual particles. It was found that the Manchester samples contained more pulmonary soluble mercury species (as determined by elemental associations of Hg and Cl) in comparison to the other two samples, Curitiba, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. This finding ultimately underlines the necessity to conduct a site-specific in-depth analysis of RD, to determine the concentration, chemical structure and molecular speciation of the materials within the complex matrix of RD. Therefore, rather than simply assuming that higher bulk concentrations equate to more significant potential human health concerns, the leaching potential of the metal/element in its specific form (for example as a mineral) should be ascertained. The importance of individual particle behaviour in the determination of human health risk is therefore highlighted.

Characteristics and Health Risk Assessment of Mercury Exposure via Indoor and Outdoor Household Dust in Three Iranian Cities

“…This element is listed as a priority by many international agencies, such as UNEP, WHO, and FAO [20]. Even though sources of Hg can be natural (e.g., geochemical anomalies, volcanoes, forest wildfires), anthropogenic factors are responsible for the largest portion of Hg emissions in the environment [21,22]. Due to the accelerating pace of industrialization and its by-products, the levels of Hg on a global scale have constantly increased in recent decades, compared to the natural contributions [23,24].…”

The Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health (SEGH): building for the future

“…Africa, South East Asia) will help SEGH to keep up with emerging research challenges. Such a move presents an exciting opportunity to increase international collaborations to tackle increasing environmental pressures from anthropogenic activities (Brown et al 2019;Kaninga et al 2019;Olatunji and Afolabi 2019;Rodgers et al 2019;Stewart 2019) that have an impact on human and animal health (Middleton et al 2019). SEGH presents a platform for emerging technologies to identify and measure environmental pathways for contaminants via exposure and hazard assessment, in addition to interests in nutrition through deficiency of essential nutrients and transfer pathways from soil-toplant and onward animal/human health investigations .…”