Comparison of fine particulate matter level, chemical content and oxidative potential derived from two dissimilar urban environments

Seasonal and Spatial Variations of PM10 and PM2.5 Oxidative Potential in Five Urban and Rural Sites across Lombardia Region, Italy

“…Furthermore, a detailed inspection of Pearson's coefficients revealed that the OP AA V values were significantly correlated with a wide list of inorganic components, including crustal material, i.e., Al, Si, K, Ca, and transition metals, such as Ti, V, Mn, Fe, which are tracers of vehicular emissions, in addition to other anthropogenic sources such as oil combustion and industrial activities [5,48,50,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60]. This association may likely explain the large variations among the OP AA V responses measured in different locations and seasons; they are related to the changes of the most reactive PM components emitted from sources that are temporally and geographically limited (Figure 1b).…”

“…This can be explained by the size distribution of the redox-active components mainly driving the AA response, namely Cr, Cu and Pb, which showed significant association with OP AA V (correlation results in Table 5). Since these highly reactive transition metals, along with Mn, Sn, Zn and Fe, were found accumulated in the coarse fraction [20][21][22]27,44,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60], they increased the oxidative activity more in the coarse fraction compared with the fine fraction, both in terms of the intrinsic OP AA m and the extrinsic OP AA V parameters (Table 2). In contrast, the OP DTT V responses were very similar for both PM 10 and PM 2.5 (Table 2).…”

Application of k0-INAA Method in Preliminary Characterization of KRISS Urban Airborne Particulate Matter Certified Reference Material

“…The concentrations of the elements As, Br, Cd, Cr, and Hg, which are generally known to be toxic, are relatively low compared to those in NIST SRM 1648a. According to the air quality guidelines from the World Health Organization [61], the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified As, Cd, Cr(VI), and Ni as human carcinogens (Group 1) and Pb as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) [2,58,61,62]. Cd, As, and Pb are particularly known to be associated with industrial activities, such as heavy and metallurgical industry, coal burning, and copper production [2,53,58].…”

“…According to the air quality guidelines from the World Health Organization [61], the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified As, Cd, Cr(VI), and Ni as human carcinogens (Group 1) and Pb as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) [2,58,61,62]. Cd, As, and Pb are particularly known to be associated with industrial activities, such as heavy and metallurgical industry, coal burning, and copper production [2,53,58]. In addition, Cd and Cr are elements of industrial origin that enter the air due to the resuspension of soil dust [52].…”

“…Particulate matter (PM) is one of the major air pollutants that poses a threat to human health when harmful substances (i.e., toxic elements) are present in the PM and total mass are increased [1][2][3]. As the frequency and intensity of air pollution caused by PM increase in many parts of the world, including South Korea [4,5], internationally coordinated urgent action is needed to reduce the airborne particulate pollution level.…”