Spatial Distribution and Temporal Trends of VOCs in a Highly Industrialized Town in Turkey

Abstract

An extensive monitoring study of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) was conducted at sites across the highly industrialized town of Dilovasi, northern Turkey to determine temporal and spatial trends in pollutant concentrations and relate to the effects of source locations, meteorology, and topography. Two-week passive samplers (Tenax tubes) were deployed at twelve sites from February to December 2012 and analysed using thermal desorption and gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (TD-GC-MS). Sampled total VOC (TVOC) levels were highest in the July through October period and were highest at low-altitude sites near industry facilities and vehicle traffic sources (148.3 µg/m(3) at site 11, 154.1 µg/m(3) at site 10) and lowest at high-altitude sites located furthest upwind from industry and traffic sources (78.4 µg/m(3) at site 5 and 78.5 µg/m(3) at site 6). Analysis of "T/B" ratios suggested that contributions to ambient VOC in Dilovasi are dominated by the town's industrial sources. Meteorological conditions and the town's basin topography were also found to significantly influence the city's air quality, with strong winds from the NE observed to correlate with periods of higher sampled TVOC. Compared with other industrialized urban centers, the study revealed that there is significant toluene pollution in Dilovasi and recommended enhanced continuous monitoring at the city's industrial and residential zones.

Characteristics, Secondary Transformation Potential and Health Risks of Atmospheric Volatile Organic Compounds in an Industrial Area in Zibo, East China

“…The main anthropogenic sources of VOCs include vehicle emissions, combustion, industrial emissions, fuel evaporation and solvent usage [2,3]. Some of the biogenic VOCs are emitted mainly by natural sources, such as vegetation, oceans, and soils [4,5]. Compared with anthropogenic emissions, biogenic contribution is usually minor in urban atmospheres [6].…”

Potential sources and measured concentrations of VOCs in Balikesir ambient atmosphere

“…Like in many other developing countries, air pollution is considered a serious problem in many Turkish cities. Although the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has established air quality stations which monitor criteria pollutants (i.e., PM, CO, NO x , SO 2 , and O 3 ) in 81 provinces of Turkey, there are only a small number of studies about organic compounds conducted in this country (Muezzinoglu et al, 2001;Cetin et al, 2003;Elbir et al, 2007;Im et al, 2008;Özden et al, 2008;Pekey and Arslanbaş, 2008;Civan et al, 2011;Demir et al, 2011;Pekey and Yilmaz, 2011;Kara and Aydin, 2013;Kuntasal et al, 2013;Demirel et al, 2014;Öztürk et al, 2015;Artun et al, 2017;Yurdakul et al, 2017). Furthermore, these studies mainly focused on highly populated and industrialized cities, thus they are limited.…”