Heavy Metal Concentration in PM2.5 from Firework Displays is a Major Factor of Atmospheric Pollution during Spring Festival in Chengdu, China

Abstract

Firework displays have been reported to dramatically increase atmospheric pollution during the annual Spring Festival in Chengdu, China. It is unclear, however, whether the atmospheric pollution caused by the displays is associated with specific heavy metal elements. To investigate the matter of firework induced atmospheric pollution during Spring Festival in Chengdu in 2017. We determined the major measurement factors of air quality include PM10, PM2.5, PM1.0, meteorological phenomena, and heavy metal elements with the conditions and characteristics of atmospheric pollution. All data was measured under atmospheric quality monitoring and quality control in accordance with the relevant standard of China. On the one hand, we observed the first heavy atmospheric pollutions were impacted by unfavorable meteorological conditions which led to constant generation and accumulation of PM1.0, and an increased concentration of PM2.5. The maximum value of concentration of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1.0 was 302 μg/ m3, 222 μg/m3 and 131 μg/m3 respectively. On the other hand, we measured the maximum value of concentration of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1.0 as 408 μg/m3, 275 μg/m3 and 191 μg/m3, respectively during the second heavy atmospheric pollution. We found that while the concentration of PM2.5 was decreased to 78μg/m3, the heavy metal elements in PM2.5 also declined to 10.6 μg/m3, which was almost the same as the concentration of heavy metal elements before the displays. Moreover, the concentrations of heavy metal elements K, Ca, Cu and Ba were obviously changed in different weather conditions. We observed that the concentrations of K, Ca, Cu and Ba can be decreased to a large extent in the transition from pollution to cleaners, suggesting that the concentration of heavy metal elements in PM2.5 was significantly increased by fireworks during Spring Festival in Chengdu, China. Taken together, firework displays were a major factor of atmospheric pollution, causing the concentration of heavy metal elements in PM10, PM2.5 and PM1.0 to dramatically increase during Spring Festival in Chengdu, China.