Abstract
Atmospheric quasi-ultrafine particles (qUFP; PM<0.25) can cause harmful effects to human health, mainly to elderly people. Although not always considered, these effects can be mostly due to its chemical composition. The scope of this work is (i) to quantify the abundance of ions and trace elements in qUFP in elderly residences, (ii) to identify the sources of these qUFP and (iii) to estimate the respiratory deposition doses (RDD) of qUFP and black carbon (rBC), which is an important component of qUFP, to various parts of the respiratory tract. In order to evaluate the qUFP chemical composition in elderly residences in the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo (MASP), we collected qUFP by using a Personal Cascade Impactor Sampler (PCIS). We analysed ions by chromatography and trace elements by Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence. We identified the sources of qUFP by applying Positive Matrix Factorization. We calculated the RDD through an equation, which use the tidal volume of lung, the typical breath frequency, the deposition fraction and the mass concentration of different size fractions of a PM. We collected 60 samples from 59 residences between May 2014 and July 2015. The major of ions concentrations in qUFP were found to be SO42- and NH4+, and the major trace elements were Si and Fe. Some residences have a high concentration of the toxic heavy metals Cu, Ni, Pb and Cr. We found six dominant sources of the indoor qUFP: vehicular emission (57%), secondary inorganic aerosol (21%), soil and construction (7%), wall painting (7%), cooking (5%) and industry (3%). The maximum RDD of qUFP and rBC are in the tracheobronchial part. Our results show that vehicular emissions dominate the indoor qUFP concentrations and uptake in elderly residences in the MASP.
Highlights
Atmospheric aerosol particles in the urban environment are characterized by different sizes, shapes, and chemical composition (Heal et al, 2012; Kumar et al, 2014)
The scope of this work is (i) to quantify the abundance of ions and trace elements in quasi-ultrafine particles (qUFP) in elderly residences, (ii) to identify the sources of these qUFP and (iii) to estimate the respiratory deposition doses (RDD) of qUFP and black carbon, which is an important component of qUFP, to various parts of the respiratory tract
The total mass concentration has no significant correlations with trace elements, just a weak negative correlation with Cu (r = –0.2) and a positive correlation with P (r = 0.2), NO3– (r = 0.2) and rBC (r = 0.2, Fig. 2(b))
Summary
Atmospheric aerosol particles in the urban environment are characterized by different sizes, shapes, and chemical composition (Heal et al, 2012; Kumar et al, 2014). In contrast to Segalin et al, Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 20: 1002–1015, 2020 a significant number of studies on the chemical composition of ambient larger particles, there is hardly any study on the chemical composition of qUFP, if it comes to indoor air pollution (Viana et al, 2014). This is comprehensible in light that the high mass concentrations of particles are expected to be in the coarse and accumulation ranges
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