Assessment of PM2.5 Chemical Composition and Air Quality Monitoring: Implications of Air Pollutants Emissions from a Night Market in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Abstract

There are around 300 night markets in Taiwan, and they have been drawing an increasing number of tourists in recent years. As a result, public awareness over air quality in the night markets has grown tremendously. In response to this, a specific night market in Kaohsiung City was chosen for this study in order to characterize the existing air quality in and around the night markets. In this present study, we employed an Industrial Source Complex Short-Term (ISCST3) air quality model for the simulation of PM2.5 diffusions. The model as a technique can simulate the pollutants emissions, diffusions, transportation, and pollution sources in specific areas and subsequently evaluate the influence between the source and the receiver. Therefore, we compared pollutants emissions data from several air quality monitoring stations with our sampling data of three different sampling sites in Kaohsiung City. The findings of this study showed that the average concentration of PM2.5 was in the range of 29-61 µg m -3 during opening hours of the night market, whereas the average concentration of PM2.5 range was between 22-38 µg m -3 before the night market opening hours. The concentration of metallic elements (ME) (Mg, Na, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Al, Ba, Cd, Pb and Ca) was determined with the support of Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). During the night market opening hours, the result disclosed that the ME concentrations in PM 2.5 was in an increasing order as follows: Na>Fe>Al>Ca. With respect to the concentration of carbonaceous species, our results showed that the highest total carbon (TC) concentration was found to be 6.52 µg m -3 during the downwind sampling interval. The highest elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) concentration were found to be 6.53 µg m -3 and 2.70 µg m -3 of the PM2.5 concentration, respectively. This study's findings have significant consequences for Taiwan policymakers and urban planners, particularly those responsible for coordinating environmental protection and economic development in cities. Therefore, police actions to abate urban air pollution can be attained on diverse governing echelons, resulting in synergistic effects such as a reduction in climate change impacts.

Assessing wastewater pollution from outdoor night markets and its impacts on river quality

“…Zhao & Lin (2010) characterized the air quality in night markets and demonstrated that the levels of CO, CO 2 , particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller or equal to 10 μm (PM 10 ), particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller or equal to 2.5 μm (PM 2.5 ), formaldehyde (HCHO), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) at night markets were all higher during open hours than those during nonoperation hours. Amesho et al (2021) assessed PM 2.5 in a night market and obtained similar results. Que et al (2019) studied carbonyl compounds in cooking oil fumes in night markets and found that high emissions of carbonyl compounds could increase the cancer risk due to workplace exposure.…”

Emission Reduction of NOx, CO, HC, PM2.5, and PAHs by Using a Catalyst in a Diesel Engine

“…The formation of toxic PAHs is closely related to vehicular exhaust from incomplete combustion. Substantial contributions from traffic emissions lead to an increased probability of developing respiratory allergy and lung cancer (Amesho et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021b). The index for health risk assessments such as ILCRs and BaPeq are used to evaluate the cancer risk of PAHs.…”

Operational and Environmental Assessment for Night Markets under the Informal Economy Impacts: Insights from the Case Study of Selangor, Malaysia

“…Studies have found that concentrations of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), particulate matter 10 (PM10), particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), formaldehyde (HCHO), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) during the operating period of the night market were higher than during the non-operating period due to cooking activities, with barbecue activities cause the most severe air pollution [18]. In addition, the dumping of organic wastes into the environment might contribute to global warming, and policy actions were needed to target air pollution problems at different levels of management to create synergistic effects and reduce the impact of climate change [19,20]. Existing studies involving the night market area included solid waste recycling from garbage bins [21], wastewater pollution generated [5], hazards of exhaust gases generated [18,22,23], sources of electricity for operations [6], tableware materials [24], dangers of plastic packaging for hot food [25], perceptions of using plastic packaging [26], willingness of merchants to have environmentally friendly packaging [10], and biodegradation potential of recycled wastes [27].…”