Seasonal Variation and Sources of Heavy Metals in Atmospheric Aerosols in a Residential Area of Ulsan, Korea

Abstract

This study investigated seasonal variations in mass concentrations of particulate matter (PM) and compositions of heavy metals in PM 2.5 and PM 10 collected from a typical urban residential area in Ulsan, Korea. PM measurements were conducted during spring and summer of 2009. Mean concentrations of PM 2.5 in spring and summer were 23.2 and 18.1 µg/m 3 , respectively. Mean concentrations of PM 10 in spring and summer were 45.9 and 33.2 µg/m 3 , respectively. The lower summer PM concentrations as compared to the spring ones are due to the increased rainfall precipitation. Airborne PM was analyzed for these heavy metals: Fe, Zn, Cd, Mn, Pb, Cu, Cr and Ni. All of the metals in PM 2.5 and PM 10 had higher concentrations in spring than in summer, except Cr in PM 10 which shows similar concentrations between spring and summer. Seasonal differences in the metal concentrations may be due to differences in wind directions with some winds passing through industry or traffic areas. Analysis of enrichment factors of heavy metals showed highly enriched Cd, Zn, Pb and Cu. Principal component analysis for the heavy metals in PM 2.5 and PM 10 identified industrial emissions and road dust (soil and traffic) as major sources at the sampling site.

Variability of Aerosol Parameters Derived from Ground and Satellite Measurements over Varanasi Located in the Indo-Gangetic Basin

“…5 shows the variation of daily AODs at 550 nm retrieved from MICROTOPS-II at the time of pass of Terra satellite over Varanasi and MODIS level 3 data onboard Terra satellite during the year 2011. AOD loading is found to show strong seasonal variations which is enhanced during pre-monsoon (May, June) and winter season (November, December) while decreased during the monsoon season During pre-monsoon season, enhancement in AOD is attributed to aerosol loading transported from the neighbouring Thar desert region Lee et al, 2011;Srivastava et al, 2011) as well as from far source region, Arabia peninsula and African regions. Similar variation of AOD over Varanasi was observed by using only satellite data of MODIS and MISR during [2005][2006][2007][2008][2009].…”

Prospective Health Risk of Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter and Its Elemental Composition in Shoe Industries in Agra

“…Cu is strongly correlated with Zn (r=0.74), Fe (r=0.79), Pb (r=0.99), Ni (r=0.98), Mn (r=0.72), As (r=0.76); the sources of copper are road dust, vehicular exhaust and biomass burning [24,29]. Zn is strongly correlated with Fe (r=0.87), Pb (r=0.83), Co (r=0.78), Al (r=0.80), Ni (0.87), and Mn (r=0.99); sources of zinc are vehicle exhaust, road dust, fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning [22,25,26]. Fe is positively correlated with Pb (r=0.84), Ni (r=0.87), and Mn (r=0.90); Fe indicates soil origin and road resuspension in correlation with Pb outdoor traffic polluted resuspended road dust enters indoors at few industry.…”

“…Ni is strongly correlated with Mn (r=0.84) and As (r=0.61); sources of nickel are fossils fuel combustion, biomass burning, road dust and vehicle exhaust [27,28]. Cd is strongly correlated with Ca (r=0.70), Cr (r=0.99), Na (r=0.81), Mg (r=0.70), and PM2.5 (r=0.8); vehicular emissions, and industrial emission, automobile lubricants activities are the possible sources of cadmium in ambient air [22]. Bold value in parenthesis indicates correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).…”

The effect of sampling scheme in the survey of atmospheric deposition of heavy metals in Albania by using moss biomonitoring

“…The increase of heavy metal concentrations in the environment may have a potential hazard to humans caused by the accumulation in our food chain after a long time of exposure. The distribution of heavy metals in the environment is depended strongly to weather and local conditions (Nali and Lorenzini 2007), especially to wind speed and direction, and vertical and horizontal thermal gradients (Lee and Hieu 2011). The aerosols with small falling velocity are easily transported by the wind and if deposited constantly even in small rate for a long time period, the environmental accumulation will probably pose an increase of environmental and health hazard.…”