Concentrations of particulate airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and metals collected in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Hi-vol air sampling equipment was run at three sites (representative of “city”, “industrial” and “rural” sampling locations) in Lahore, Pakistan, for over a year. The extraction and quantitative analyses of all Lahore air samples was completed for a suite of metals, various anions, ammonium, elemental and organic carbon, as well as particle-associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A comparison of Lahore yearly mean pollutant concentrations with those obtained in Birmingham, U.K., shows that airborne metal levels in the Pakistani city are greater by at least one order of magnitude. The concentrations in Lahore obtained from this study are broadly in line with similar studies in Karachi as well as Calcutta and Bombay. Concentrations of particle-associated PAH are also around one order of magnitude higher than in U.K. samples, and, given the difference in ambient temperature, vapour-to-particle ratios of PAH are expected to be far higher in the hotter climate of Lahore. Minerals identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) in the Lahore air samples were broadly in line with those determined at locations in other parts of the world.