Use of Mercury Dry Deposition Samplers to Quantify Dry Deposition of Particulate-Bound Mercury and Reactive Gaseous Mercury at a Traffic Sampling Site

Abstract

A dry deposition plate (DDP), which collects particulate-bound mercury Hg(p) was used in this study (Fang et al., 2011a; 2011b). In addition, knife-edge surrogate surface (KSS) was used to collect ambient air particulate-bound mercury Hg(p) and reactive gaseous mercury (RGM) (Huang et al., 2011). The above two samplers were used to collect ambient air particulate-bound mercury Hg(p) and RGM at Huang-Kuang (traffic) sampling site during the daytime and nighttime sampling periods for this study. The results indicate that the mean rate of dry deposition of particle-bound mercury Hg(p) from ambient air, determined using the dry deposition plate, was 0.025 ng/m2*min and 0.018 ng/m2*min in the daytime and the nighttime sampling periods, respectively. The mean rate of dry deposition of particle-bound mercury Hg(p), collected using a KSS of quartz was 0.026 ng/m2*min and 0.018 ng/m2*min in the daytime and nighttime sampling periods, respectively. The mean rate of dry deposition of RGM collected from a KSS of an ion-exchange membrane (IEM) in the daytime and nighttime sampling periods was 0.027 ng/m2*min and 0.020 ng/m2*min, respectively.