Characterization of PM Using Multiple Site Data in a Heavily Industrialized Region of Turkey

Melik Kara,Philip K Hopke,Mustafa Odabasi,Yetkin Dumanoglu,Abdurrahman Bayram,Tolga Elbir,Hasan Altiok

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2014.02.0039

Melik Kara, Philip K Hopke + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.02.0039

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Abstract

Source apportionment has most often been applied to a time series of data collected at a single site. However, in a complex airshed where there are multiple sources, it may be helpful to collect samples from multiple sites to ensure that some of them have low contributions from specific sources such that edges can be properly defined. In this study, samples were collected at multiple sites in the Aliaga region (38°40′–38°54′N and 26°50′–27°03′E) located in western Turkey on the coast of the Aegean Sea. This area contains a number of significant air pollution sources including five scrap iron-steel processing plants with electric arc furnaces (EAFs), several steel rolling mills, a petroleum refinery, a petrochemical complex, a natural gas-fired power plant, a fertilizer plant, ship breaking yards, coal storage and packaging, scrap storage and classification sites, large slag and scrap piles, heavy road traffic, very intense transportation activities including ferrous scrap trucks and busy ports used for product and raw material transportation. A total of 456 samples of PM10 at six sampling sites and 88 samples of PM2.5 at one site were collected for four seasons and the elemental composition was determined for 43 elements. The newest version of EPA PMF (V5.0) that has the capability of handling multiple site data was used for source apportionment. Eight factors were identified as iron-steel production from scrap (23.4%), re-suspended and road dust (23.3%), crustal (20.5%), marine aerosol (14.4%), biomass and wood combustion (7.2%), salvage activities (4.7%), coal combustion (3.7%) and residual oil combustion (2.8%). The pattern of source contributions and conditional probability function analysis were consistent with the locations of the known sources. Thus, the multiple site data allowed for a comprehensive identification of the primary sources of PM in this region.

Highlights

IntroductionParticulate matter (PM) may be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural (i.e., soil erosion, sea spray, volcanic activities, natural forest fires) and anthropogenic sources (i.e., industrial activities, traffic emissions, residential heating, fossil fuel combustion including coal and biomass burning)
Particulate matter (PM) may be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources
The annual average values of PM10 concentrations were 39.9, 50.4, 53.6, 55.0, 54.1, and 49.8 μg/m3 for Aliaga town, Helvaci, Bozkoy, Horozgedigi, Cakmakli, and the ship breaking yards, respectively. These annual PM10 values exceeded the European Air Quality Directive, 2008/50/EC (EC, 2008) limit value of 40 μg/m3 at all sites except Aliaga town

Summary

Introduction

Particulate matter (PM) may be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural (i.e., soil erosion, sea spray, volcanic activities, natural forest fires) and anthropogenic sources (i.e., industrial activities, traffic emissions, residential heating, fossil fuel combustion including coal and biomass burning). They can be formed by the chemical transformation of organic compounds or inorganic gases in the atmosphere as secondary organic aerosol (SOA) (Kroll and Seinfeld, 2008) and secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA) (Belis et al, 2013). Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) has become the most widely used receptor modeling approach (Paatero and Hopke, 2003)

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