Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Indoor Air and Dust in Kuwait: Implications for Sources and Nondietary Human Exposure

Abstract

This study reports concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in indoor air and dust samples collected from 24 homes in Kuwait. Mean SigmaPAHs in indoor air ranged from 1.3 to 16 ng/m(3) with a geometric mean of 5.6 ng/m(3), whereas the dust concentrations varied over three orders of magnitude, from 3 to 2920 ng/g, with a geometric mean of 165 ng/g. The low-molecular-weight tricyclic and tetracyclic PAHs dominated the air profile constituting approximately 70-90 % of the measured compounds, with phenanthrene (51%), fluorene (13 %), fluoranthere (8 %), and pyrene (7 %) being the major contributors. The PAH profile in dust was dominated by the high-molecular-weight PAHs, with three compounds (benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, and benzo[b]fluoranthene) contributing approximately 60% of the average SigmaPAHs measured in the samples. Indoor-to-outdoor (I/O) ratios for individual compounds were <1 for the majority of compounds, suggesting that there were no significant indoor sources for these compounds in these homes. Using the measured concentrations in air and dust, together with estimates of inhalation and inadvertent dust ingestion rates for children and adults, estimated human nondietary exposure on a BaP(equiv) basis were 547 pg/kg body weight/day and 205 pg/kg body weight/day for children and adults, respectively. Exposure from dust ingestion contributes about 42% of nondietary intake of SigmaPAHs in children, but only 11% for adults. The threefold difference in exposure estimates between children and adults in this study supports previous reports that children are at greater risk from pollutants that accumulate indoors.