Concentrations of ultrafine, fine and PM2.5 particles in three European cities

Ruuskanen, Juhani; Tuch, T.; Brink, H.M. ten; Peters, Annette; Khlystov, Andrey; Mirme, A.; Kos, G.P.A.; Brunekreef, Bert; Wichmann, H‐Erich; Buzorius, G.; Vallius, Marko; Kreyling, Wolfgang G.; Pekkanen, Juha

doi:10.1016/s1352-2310(00)00373-3

Cited by 181 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The mean number concentration of roadside ultrafine (10-100 nm) particles was low compared with that reported in many similar studies (Harrison et al, 1999;Hitchins et al, 2000;Hughes et al, 1998;Morawska et al, 1999;Ruellan and Cachier, 2001;Ruuskanen et al, 2001;Vakeva et al, 1999) (see Table 4, Paper I). Some possible explanations for this low value are that (1) there are no other nearby sources, e.g.…”

Section: Roadside Traffic Emissionscontrasting

confidence: 52%

Personal exposures and indoor, residential outdoor, and urban background levels of fine particle trace elements in the general population

et al. 2006

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The general population is exposed to particulate air pollution from many different local and regional sources. Examples of local sources are traffic, biomass burning and resuspended dust, while regional sources are dominated by combustion processes from heating, traffic and industries. The overall aim of this thesis was to characterise the personal exposure to trace elements in fine particles, mainly PM 2.5 and investigate how the exposure is related to indoor and outdoor levels. Particulate matter was collected on filters and analysed for elemental content by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy.In the general population in Göteborg, personal exposures to Cl, Ca, Ti and Fe were significantly higher compared with indoor, residential outdoor and urban background levels. Significant correlations were also found between urban background PM mass and personal exposure to elements related to both combustion (S, V and Pb) and resuspended dust (Ti, Fe and Zn), indicating that both sources could be relevant for health effects from urban background PM. In a community where wood burning for domestic heating is common, significantly (66-80%) higher personal exposures and indoor levels were found for K, Ca and Zn compared with a reference group living in the same area, indicating that these elements could be good markers for wood smoke. In a study in Stockholm concerning children's environments (home, school and preschool), higher indoor than outdoor levels of Ti were found, while long-range-transported (LRT) elements (S, Ni, Br and Pb) were higher outdoors. A community located 25 km from the city centre had significantly lower outdoor levels of crustal and traffic-related elements compared with both the city centre and a suburban area. The levels of Fe and Cu were four times higher in the central communities. Outdoors, Cu levels were found to correlate well with the traffic marker NO 2 , making it a possible elemental marker for traffic-related aerosols in health studies. Roadside measurements of fine and ultrafine (<100 nm) particles were performed along a major approach road to Göteborg and the levels of ultrafine particles were influenced not only by traffic intensity, but also, by wind speed and direction, as well as boundary layer height. No correlation was found between PM 2.5 and ultrafine particles or traffic, but there was a correlation between PM 2.5 and particles sized 100-368 nm. In all environments studied, the origin of LRT air masses had a strong effect on exposure and levels of PM elements.In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that elemental analysis is a useful method for better characterising human exposure to fine particles. For several elements, the personal exposure is often higher than corresponding indoor levels. The origin of LRT elements affected not only outdoor levels, but also, the personal exposure and indoor levels, and should be taken into account in time series studies of air pollution and health.

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Section: Roadside Traffic Emissionscontrasting

confidence: 52%

Personal exposures and indoor, residential outdoor, and urban background levels of fine particle trace elements in the general population

et al. 2006

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“…Some recent continental sampling campaigns that measured size distributions include the Pittsburgh Air Quality Study (Stanier et al, 2004), the Atlanta PM Supersite program (Woo et al, 2001), and sampling campaigns in Los Angeles (Kim et al, 2002;Fine et al, 2004), Northern Europe (Ruuskanen et al, 2001), Tennessee (Cheng and Tanner, 2002), Brisbane, Australia (Morawska et al, 2002), the UK (Harrison et al, 2000), Estonia and Finland (Kikas et al, 1996) and Central Europe (Birmili et al, 2001). Most of these studies were con ducted in urban areas in which the vast majority of ultrafine PM originate from primary sources (Morawska et al, 1998;Harrison et al, 2000;Woo et al, 2001), thus their diurnal profiles match those of local vehicular sources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Buzorius et al (1999) measured aerosol characteristics at a series of sites in Helsinki, Finland in order to investigate the transport of aerosol traveling from source sites to receptor sites. Ruuskanen et al (2001) conducted monitoring in three different European cities using continuous monitors to describe differences among the sites as well as diurnal variations of particle mass and number concentrations. Little information has been reported on the seasonal patterns of size distributions due to the lack of long-term monitoring.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal and spatial trends in particle number concentrations and size distributions at the children's health study sites in Southern California

Singh

Phuleria

Bowers

et al. 2005

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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“…Even in the urban areas of Helsinki, 50-70% of PM 2:5 is LRT (Karppinen et al, 2004;Vallius et al, 2003). Mass concentrations of PM 2:5 are low in Finland compared to their levels in polluted areas of central and Southern Europe (Ruuskanen et al, 2001;EMEP, 2002). The mean PM 2:5 concentrations in 1999-2001 were only 9.6 mg m À3 at an urban monitoring station in Helsinki and 5.8 mg m À3 at a rural background station in Hyytia¨la ( Laakso et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization and source identification of a fine particle episode in Finland

Niemi

Tervahattu

Vehkamäki

et al. 2004

Atmospheric Environment

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A strong long-range transported (LRT) fine particle (PM 2:5 ) episode occurred from March 17-22, 2002 over large areas of Finland. Most of the LRT particle mass was in the submicrometre size fraction. The number of concentrations of 90-500 nm particles increased by a factor of 5.6 during the episode, but the concentrations of particles smaller than 90 nm decreased. This reduction of the smallest particles was caused by suppressed gas-to-particle conversion due to the vapour uptake of LRT particles. Individual particle analyses using SEM/EDX showed that the proportion of sulphurrich particles rose strongly during the episode and that the relative weight percentage of potassium was unusually high in these particles. The median S/K ratios of S-rich particles were 2.1 at the beginning of the episode, 5.2 at the peak stage of the episode and 8.9 during the reference days. The high proportion of K is a clear indication of emissions from biomass burning, because K is a good tracer of biomass-burning aerosols. Trajectories and satellite detections of fire areas indicated that the main source of biomass-burning aerosols was large-scale agricultural field burning in the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The higher S/K ratio of S-rich particles during the peak stage was obviously due to the increased proportion of fossil fuel-burning emissions in the LRT particle mass, since air masses arrived from the more polluted areas of Europe at that time. The concentrations of sulphate, total nitrate and total ammonium increased during the episode. Our results suggest that large-scale agricultural field burning may substantially affect PM 2:5 concentrations under unfavourable meteorological conditions even at distances over 1000 km from the burning areas. r

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Concentrations of ultrafine, fine and PM2.5 particles in three European cities

Cited by 181 publications

References 22 publications

Personal exposures and indoor, residential outdoor, and urban background levels of fine particle trace elements in the general population

Personal exposures and indoor, residential outdoor, and urban background levels of fine particle trace elements in the general population

Seasonal and spatial trends in particle number concentrations and size distributions at the children's health study sites in Southern California

Characterization and source identification of a fine particle episode in Finland

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