Concentration, Origin and Health Hazard from Fine Particle-Bound PAH at Three Characteristic Sites in Southern Poland

Abstract

Suspended particles with the aerodynamic diameters not greater than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) and 1 μm (PM1, sub-fraction of PM2.5) were sampled at three sites: an urban background site, rural background site, and urban traffic site in southern Poland. In total, there were 240 samples taken within 02.08.2009–27.12.2010. Fifteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) were determined in each dust fraction. The averages of the concentration of total PAH (ΣPAH) and of particular PAH, as well as the share of carcinogenic PAH in total PAH (ΣPAHcarc/ΣPAH), carcinogenic equivalent, mutagenic equivalent, and TCDD-toxic equivalent appeared high compared to other areas in the world. Their high values express the significance of health hazard from PM and PM-bound PAH in southern Poland. The diagnostic ratios suggest that PM-bound PAH originate from municipal (PM1−2.5) and vehicular (PM1) combustion.

Seasonal Variations in Health Hazards from Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Bound to Submicrometer Particles at Three Characteristic Sites in the Heavily Polluted Polish Region

“…The way in which each indicator was calculated is given under the table. The values in the table were calculated with the results obtained in this study and additionally, results from other world regions taken from the publications quoted in Table 2 [6,10,14,26,[28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

“…TEF expresses absolute toxicity of a particular PAH, whereas CEQ specifies carcinogenicity of a PAH group in the air [5]. The so-called mutagenic equivalent (MEQ) or the TCDD-toxic equivalent (TEQ) can also be useful as indicators to assess the PAH mixture health effect [6].…”

Particulate Matter from the Road Surface Abrasion as a Problem of Non-Exhaust Emission Control

“…The physical removal of elements from road and street surfaces via washing and sweeping does not sufficiently limit human exposure to PM resulting from traffic emission [55]. The complex process of overlapping the so-called urban background onto road traffic pollutants, along with the associated physical changes and chemical reactions, lead to the conclusion that PM close to roads may be much more toxic or may have a higher carcinogenic potential than PM outside such areas [11,12,20,70,[74][75][76][77].…”

“…Both the PM 2.5 (fraction of atmospheric particles with an aerodynamic diameter not exceeding 2.5 µm; fine PM) mass share of PM and the ambient concentration of PM 2.5 in the vicinities of roads are strongly affected by exhaust emissions than by non-exhaust emissions [11,12,20,37]. When compared to PM 2.5 from other areas, the effect of car fume emissions can mainly be seen in an increase in soot and some organic compounds in the PM 2.5 mass [3,4,6,[11][12][13]20,21].…”

“…PM from anthropogenic sources include particles from so-called municipal emissions (mainly soot, organic matter, and inorganic salts resulting from the combustion of coal and biomass in domestic furnaces, local coal-fired boiler plants, or heat plants [20,[60][61][62]) and from industrial emissions (mainly fine particles enriched in heavy metals or persistent organic pollutants [63][64][65][66][67][68]). In addition, particles of salt, sand (coarse PM), or a mixture of both are released into the urban atmosphere, especially during the winter season [9,25,35,40,69].…”