Abstract
Atmospheric pollution is an important task in life sciences and, in particular, inorganic fraction characterization is considered as an important issue in this field. For many years, researchers have focused their attention on the particulate matter fraction below 10 μm: in this case, our attention was also focused on PM2.5 (i.e., particles with a size fraction smaller than 2.5 μm) and PM1 (below 1 μm). This paper would like to investigate whether the element accumulation in different granulometric fractions is similar, or whether there are behavior dissimilarities. Among the different analytical techniques, the instrumental neutron activation analysis, an instrumental nuclear method, was used for its peculiarity of investigating the sample without performing any chemical-physical treatment. Forty-two daily samples using the reference method were collected, 15 filters for PM10, 18 for PM2.5, and 12 for PM1; the filters, along with primary standards and appropriate standard reference materials, were irradiated at the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) R.C.-Casaccia’s Triga MARK II reactor. The irradiations carried out in the Rabbit and Lazy Susan channels allowed for the investigation of 36 elements and the relative Pearson’s correlations between elements and PM-fractions (PM10 vs. PM2.5 was good, whereas PM10 vs. PM1 was the worst). The Enrichment Factors were studied for the three fractions to show how anthropogenic sources have affected the element content. A comparison between these data and element levels determined worldwide showed that our concentrations were lower than those determined in similar scenarios. Furthermore, a statistical approach (source discrimination, hierarchical cluster analysis, principal component analysis) has allowed us to identify similarities between the samples: the airborne filters can be divided in two main groups (i.e., one made of PM10 and PM2.5 filters and one only of PM1 filters), meaning a different element contribution to this fraction coming from other sources present at the site.
Highlights
Atmospheric pollution is a relevant task in life sciences and, in particular, inorganic fraction characterization is considered an important issue in this field
The use of a nuclear analytical technique such as instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) is strongly recommended because it allows for high sensitivity and quantification of elements to be achieved at very low concentrations
B in Table 5), some elements determined in this study showed a higher presence in relation to their respective PM10 and PM2.5 levels: among all elements, Ba, Cd, Co, Fe, La, Ni, Se, and Zn in PM10 and Ba, Co, Cr, Fe, La, Mo, Ni, Se, and Zn in PM2.5 should be considered for their environmental and human health roles
Summary
Atmospheric pollution is a relevant task in life sciences and, in particular, inorganic fraction characterization is considered an important issue in this field. This approach was followed to study the element distribution in urban particulate matter for a better knowledge of both the inorganic content, especially, the elements never determined as well as the contribution of anthropogenic sources [3,4,5,6,7] Few elements such as Fe and Sb showed an even distribution between the two fractions whereas some of them (i.e., Au, Ba, Ce, Cr, Cs, Hf, La, Mo, Nd, Sb, Sc, Sm, Th and Yb) showed levels more elevated in the coarse fraction than in the fine fraction; on the other hand, As, Br Ni, Rb, Se, W, and Zn displayed an opposite behavior. In other previous papers [8,9], the authors only demonstrated the importance of PM1 determination in areas with high anthropogenic sources (e.g., industrial emissions, combustion processes): this fraction represents almost 60% of the total mass of PM10 and more than
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