High-time resolution and size-segregated elemental composition in high-intensity pyrotechnic exposures

Abstract

h i g h l i g h t sStreaker/Dekati/PIXE are suitable to study high-intensity short-lived firework events. Fireworks related elements showed >80% elemental mass in the submicrometric region. Resuspended soil dust is an important source of atmospheric particles in these shows. a r t i c l e i n f o b s t r a c tTypical of festivals in Eastern Spain, mascletàs are high-intensity pyrotechnic events where thousands of firecrackers are burnt in an intense, rapid episode that generates short-lived heavy aerosol clouds. High temporal resolution and size distribution characterisation of aerosol components were performed to evaluate the effects of the brief (<30 min) and acute exposure on the spectators present. Very high concentrations of firework specific elements, especially in the fine fraction, were reached during mascletàs, with values of about 500 g/m 3 for K and 300 g/m 3 for Cl. Sr, Al, Mg, Ba, Cu, Co, Zn, and Pb concentration increase factors of more than 100 (1000 for Sr and Ba) were observed in the fine fraction with respect to background levels. Crustal origin elements, like Ca, Fe, Si, Ti, also showed an important concentration rise (∼10 times above background levels) but this is due to dust resuspension by pyrotechnic explosions. The crustal components are mainly in the coarse mode (>90% elemental mass), between 2 and 3 m. Most firework related metals are concentrated in the submicrometric region (>80%) with a trimodal size distribution. This may be interesting to epidemiologists given the toxic effects that such fine, metal-rich particles can have on human health.

Real-Time Measurements of Ozone and UV Radiation during Pyrotechnic Displays

“…This is likely due to the reaction between O 3 and NO, released along with particles from the combustion of fireworks, during the transport of the pyrotechnic plume to the measurement site. Additionally, calcium-rich particles resuspended during the displays (Crespo et al, 2012) could catalyze the heterogeneous destruction of ozone in a similar way to that reported during Saharan dust intrusions (Bonasoni et al, 2004;Nicolás et al, 2014). So, although it is obvious from Fig.…”

“…A video of the Mascletà on 24 June is included in the Supplementary material. More information about the Mascletàs and the sampling location is given in Crespo et al (2012).…”

“…The burning of firecrackers and sparkles produces important amounts of particles (Moreno et al, 2007;Vecchi et al, 2008;Crespo et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2014) and gaseous pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds (Chang et al, 2011;Nishanth et al, 2012), sulfur dioxide (Moreno et al, 2007;Croteau et al, 2010;Chatterjee et al, 2013), nitrogen oxides (Moreno et al, 2007;Godri et al, 2010) and ozone (Attri et al, 2001;Nishanth et al, 2012;Kavouras et al, 2013;Yerramsetti et al, 2013). Although the deterioration of air quality during this type of events has limited time duration (generally less than 24 h), the potential health impacts cannot be considered negligible (Godri et al, 2010;Beig et al, 2013), especially for ground-level displays because of the proximity of the people attending the performance (Croteau et al, 2010).…”

Estimation of the direct and indirect impacts of fireworks on the physicochemical characteristics of atmospheric PM&lt;sub&gt;10&lt;/sub&gt; and PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt;

“…Studies on fireworks have mainly applied the following methods: burning fireworks in specific laboratories or fields to characterise their chemical properties (Tsai et al, 2012) and investigating the environmental impacts through ambient sampling champion during firework periods (Sarkar et al, 2010;Crespo et al, 2012). The former cannot reflect the actual ambient conditions and indirect impacts.…”

“…During firework displays, there is usually a transient and spectacular increase in the PM pollution. Fireworks contain a variety of metal salts, such as chlorates and perchlorates Crespo et al, 2012), leading to extremely high ambient concentrations of these species during celebrations. These heavy metals and perchlorates are all highly toxic and are on average fine enough to be easily inhaled and present a health risk to susceptible individuals.…”