Identification of elemental composition of PM_2.5collected in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, using EDXRF

Abstract

Makkah city, Saudi Arabia, represents the most attractive place for religious tourism for Muslims all over the world. More than 15 million visitors come to the city per year, especially during Hajj (pilgrimage) and Ramadan seasons. Due to the lack of air quality assessment data for Makkah, measurement of different pollutants in Makkah is of great interest. In the present work, airborne particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter equal to or less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) has been collected from two different sites in the city, namely the Grand mosque and Al‐Shraie, from December 2012 to January 2014 covering the different seasons of the year. The average mass concentrations at the sites are comparable, 48 ± 28 µg/m3 and 53 ± 27 µg/m3 for the Grand mosque and Al‐Shraie sites, respectively. For quantitative elemental analysis, energy dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry was used. Twenty elements (Si, S, Cl, K, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Se, Br, Rb, Sr and Pb) were quantified in the PM2.5 samples. Fortunately, the obtained results of Pb and S are below the maximum allowance level of European commission for air quality. However, the average concentration of Ni in both sites is close to the maximum allowance level 20 ng/m3 and the Ni concentration reaches 25 ng/m3 at Grand mosque site during August 2013. Based on the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis, four source factors were found, some signalling mixed sources, showing the main influence from mineral dust, anthropogenic/industrial sources and a marine source. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

EDXRF analysis of suspended particulate matter (SPM) from residential and industrial areas in Cairo, Egypt

“…Except Na, Al was also quantified in the present measurements, contrary with previous studies but with higher statistical uncertainty due to the nonoptimum performance of Ge detector at low photon energies. The high Al concentrations at the industrial area indicate that except the mineral dust, industrial and metal processing activities such as aluminum smelters and cement industries provide significant contributions to its presence.…”

“…Concerning Ni, its average concentrations are close to or a little bit higher than the yearly maximum allowance level of the European commission for air quality standards that is equal to 20 ng/m 3 . These results are relatively similar to our previous findings in some locations in Makkah city, Saudi Arabia . In the case of Cu and Zn, the influence of industrial activities is clear for both but a seasonal effect is only appears with Zn, Figure .…”

“…Nineteen elements were quantified and a considerable improvement in the analytical arrange and sensitivity over the previous XRF analyses was achieved . Table depicts the mean elemental concentrations during autumn 2014 and winter 2014/2015 expressed in ng/m 3 for the SPM samples collected from the residential and industrial areas, respectively.…”

“…Nineteen elements were quantified and a considerable improvement in the analytical arrange and sensitivity over the previous XRF analyses was achieved. [19][20][21][22][23] Table 1 depicts the mean elemental concentrations during autumn 2014 and winter 2014/2015 expressed in ng/m 3 for the SPM samples collected from the residential and industrial areas, respectively. In general, the elemental concentrations of the industrial location samples are higher than those found in the residential one during both seasons (autumn and winter) with the exception of V and Ni.…”

Characteristics and Sources of Hourly Trace Elements in Airborne Fine Particles in Urban Beijing, China

“…The concentrations of most TEs in Beijing are much higher than those measured in cities of the developed countries, such as London, United Kingdom (Visser et al, 2015), Toronto, Canada (Sofowote et al, 2014), Barcelona, Spain (Dall'Osto et al, 2013;Salameh et al, 2015), Athens, Greece (Grivas et al, 2018), Genoa and Venice, Italy (Salameh et al, 2015), Marseille, France (Salameh et al, 2015), Busan (Jeong et al, 2017), Chuncheon, Yeongwol (Han et al, 2015), and Gwangju City in South Korea (Park et al, 2014), as well as Denver and Greeley in the USA (Clements et al, 2014), and also in cities of developing countries like Tehran, Iran (Taghvaee et al, 2018), Nairobi, Kenya (Gaita et al, 2014), Sao Paulo, Brazil (de Miranda et al, 2018, and Makkah, Saudi Arabia (Shaltout et al, 2017). However, our TEs concentrations are somewhat lower than those in Algiers, Algeria (Talbi et al, 2018).…”