Abstract
Fireworks displays are among the most important events during Taiwan’s annual Lantern Festival, although thus practice leads to metal and non-metal pollution in the air. In this study, we investigated the levels of 16 elements—Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Ba, and Pb—during the fireworks festival in Yanshui, Tainan, Taiwan, and the chemical compositions and mass concentration distributions of these elements collected from the sampling site are reported. The airborne particles were mainly in the sub-micrometer regime, with coarse size ranges. The concentrations of most of the elements of interest in this study were higher in the post-fireworks display period than prior to it. Studies of respiratory epithelial cell death revealed that the levels of the elements collected in the sub-micrometer size range were more than two times lower than those in the micrometer size range in the post-fireworks display period, but the viability was 65.7% for the former compared with 73.3% for the latter. Accordingly, the toxicity of the sub-micrometer particles was greater than that of the micrometer-sized particles. We conclude that the burning of fireworks during the festival was the main source of the trace metals, and contributed significantly to the increase in airborne particulate matter.
Highlights
Firecrackers and fireworks are products of the pyrotechnic industry that are used to celebrate special events (e.g., New Years Eve, National Day) and traditional festivals in many countries
We investigated the levels of 16 elements—Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Ba, and Pb—during the fireworks festival in Yanshui, Tainan, Taiwan, and the chemical compositions and mass concentration distributions of these elements collected from the sampling site are reported
We could not collect any samples during the burning of the fireworks, due to safety concerns, we found that most of the atmospheric elemental concentrations measured in the post-fireworks period were much higher than those measured in the pre-fireworks period, in the sub-micrometer fraction
Summary
Firecrackers and fireworks are products of the pyrotechnic industry that are used to celebrate special events (e.g., New Years Eve, National Day) and traditional festivals in many countries. The scale of fireworks displays can vary from as small as a birthday party up to a national day celebration (Drewnick et al, 2006) or one-off worldwide events, such as the millennium celebrations in 2000 (Webner et al, 2000). In the United States, Independence Day is celebrated with very intensive fireworks displays at night on the 4th of July. In the United Kingdom, Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated with fireworks and bonfires on November 5. The New Year in celebrated in many countries with fireworks, bonfires, and sparkler displays during the days before and after New Year’s Eve. The Divali
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