Seasonal variation and spatial distribution of atmospheric mercury and its gas-particulate partition in the vicinity of a semiconductor manufacturing complex

Abstract

This study investigated the tempospatial variation of atmospheric mercury and its gas-particulate partition in the vicinity of a semiconductor manufacturing complex, where a plenty of flat-monitor manufacturing plants using elemental mercury as a light-initiating medium to produce backlight fluorescence tubes and may fugitively emit mercury-containing air pollutants to the atmosphere. Atmospheric mercury speciation, concentration, and the partition of total gaseous mercury (TGM) and particulate mercury (Hgp) were measured at four sites surrounding the semiconductor manufacturing intensive district/complex. One-year field measurement showed that the seasonal averaged concentrations of TGM and Hgp were in the range of 3.30-6.89 and 0.06-0.14ng/m(3), respectively, whereas the highest 24-h TGM and Hgp concentrations were 10.33 and 0.26ng/m(3), respectively. Atmospheric mercury apportioned as 92.59-99.01% TGM and 0.99-7.41% Hgp. As a whole, the highest and lowest concentrations of TGM were observed in the winter and summer sampling periods, respectively, whereas the concentration of Hgp did not vary much seasonally. The highest TGM concentrations were always observed at the downwind sites, indicating that the semiconductor manufacturing complex was a hot spot of mercury emission source, which caused severe atmospheric mercury contamination over the investigation region.