Effect of fireworks on ambient air quality in Malta

Camilleri, Renato; Vella, Alfred J.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2010.07.057

Cited by 57 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The background concentration refers to the measurements carried out along the week in periods when mascletà peaks did not take place and should represent the city "normal" concentrations. The concentrations we found are higher than those found in other studies [4,10,17] and for many elements similar to the ones found by Kuhlteshta et al and Sarkar et al for Diwali festival [6,18] and Wang et al for Lantern Festival [5] (our data were averaged in the same time scales used in the cited article).…”

Section: Elemental Concentration With One-hour Temporal Resolutionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Most of the studies have been designed, as mentioned before, to measure daily urban background levels of airborne fine particles by means of standard PM samplers, belonging, in many cases, to public monitoring networks, normally at considerable distances (>1 km) from sites where firework displays are launched [1,17,18]. Even though it is very common that people attending such an event can be engulfed by smoke plumes arising from pyrotechnic displays, the impact of the brief and acute exposure to these plumes on spectators standing close to an outdoor short-lived firework event is scarcely known [19,20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

High-time resolution and size-segregated elemental composition in high-intensity pyrotechnic exposures

Crespo

Yubero

Nicolás

et al. 2012

Journal of Hazardous Materials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

h i g h l i g h t sStreaker/Dekati/PIXE are suitable to study high-intensity short-lived firework events. Fireworks related elements showed >80% elemental mass in the submicrometric region. Resuspended soil dust is an important source of atmospheric particles in these shows. a r t i c l e i n f o b s t r a c tTypical of festivals in Eastern Spain, mascletàs are high-intensity pyrotechnic events where thousands of firecrackers are burnt in an intense, rapid episode that generates short-lived heavy aerosol clouds. High temporal resolution and size distribution characterisation of aerosol components were performed to evaluate the effects of the brief (<30 min) and acute exposure on the spectators present. Very high concentrations of firework specific elements, especially in the fine fraction, were reached during mascletàs, with values of about 500 g/m 3 for K and 300 g/m 3 for Cl. Sr, Al, Mg, Ba, Cu, Co, Zn, and Pb concentration increase factors of more than 100 (1000 for Sr and Ba) were observed in the fine fraction with respect to background levels. Crustal origin elements, like Ca, Fe, Si, Ti, also showed an important concentration rise (∼10 times above background levels) but this is due to dust resuspension by pyrotechnic explosions. The crustal components are mainly in the coarse mode (>90% elemental mass), between 2 and 3 m. Most firework related metals are concentrated in the submicrometric region (>80%) with a trimodal size distribution. This may be interesting to epidemiologists given the toxic effects that such fine, metal-rich particles can have on human health.

show abstract

Section: Elemental Concentration With One-hour Temporal Resolutionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-time resolution and size-segregated elemental composition in high-intensity pyrotechnic exposures

Crespo

Yubero

Nicolás

et al. 2012

Journal of Hazardous Materials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The CS contained much higher concentrations of Sr compared to the low smoke and whistling sparklers as Sr is the metal used for displaying red color in the sparkers (Moreno et al, 2007). CS and WS had higher concentrations of Ca, Mg and Al compared to LSS as these three metals are used to create more vividly colored sparks which were observed during burning compared to LSS (Morena et al, 2008;Camilleri and Vella, 2010). LSS emissions were observed to have extremely low K concentrations compared to the other two types of sparklers, in the order of 100 times or less, reflects that small amounts of KNO 3 or KClO 4 are used as an oxidizer in those sparklers.…”

Section: Total Metal Concentration In Sparkler Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

PM2.5 Emissions from Hand-Held Sparklers: Chemical Characterization and Health Risk Assessment

Betha

Balasubramanian

2014

Aerosol Air Qual. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The central goal of this work is to improve our understanding of the distinctive and unusual chemistry of aerosol particles released from firework displays and their potential health risks due to inhalation exposure. The chemical composition of fine particles (PM 2.5 ) released from three commonly used sparklers (low smoke sparklers (LSS), whistling sparklers (WS) and colored sparklers (CS)) was investigated. In particular, total and water soluble elemental fractions (22 elements) and 13 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in PM 2.5 were quantified. The particulate emissions from LSS had relatively lower particulate-bound metals and less water-soluble fractions in them compared to those from WS and CS. However, PAHs were found to be relatively higher in LSS compared to those from WS and CS. Health risk due to inhalation of PM 2.5 emitted from all the three types of sparklers was estimated for various dilution conditions including the case with little or no dispersion of particles. It was observed that WS had the highest carcinogenic risk (25 × 10 -6 for adults and 75 × 10 -6 for children) followed by CS (2.6 × 10 -6 for adults and 7.9 × 10 -6 for children) and LSS (7.6 × 10 -7 for adults and 2.6 × 10 -6 for children) for the worst case scenario of no dilution of emitted particles during inhalation. This carcinogenic risk is pronounced only when there is no or very low dilution (~10) of emitted particles during inhalation. The health risk estimates for all sparkler types are below acceptable limits for dilution factors above 80 and thus exposure to PM 2.5 in sparkler emissions is unlikely to have serious health effects. The water soluble fraction of metals (bioavailable metals) made a major contribution to the carcinogenic health risk due to inhalation of PM 2.5 released from WS (~100%) and CS (~96%) while PAHs played a major role in the carcinogenic risk associated with PM 2.5 from LSS (~66%).

show abstract

“…The range of the size distribution and mass concentration of the aerosol was higher during than before and after the fireworks. Several studies have shown that fireworks contribute to increased PM concentrations and increased contents of Ba and Sr in the airborne particles (Wang, Zhuang, Xu, & An, 2007;Vecchi et al 2008;Barman, Singh, Negi, & Bhargava, 2009;Camilleri & Vella, 2010). Seidel and Birnbaum (2015) also studied PM2.5 observations at 315 sites across the US between 1999 and 2013 to estimate the effects of Independence Day fireworks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne Particulate Matter from Sparkling Fireworks

Shimazu¹

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present study examines the emission levels of particulate matters (PM) from sparkling fireworks and to know the emission characteristics of PM. Particulate matter <2.5 microns (PM2.5) and suspended particulate matter (SPM) were determined while burning six brands of sparkling fireworks. The average PM concentrations before burning were levels of 10 μg/m 3 , but the average concentrations after burning were 741 μg/m 3 for PM2.5 and 810 μg/m 3 for SPM. The mean ratio of the concentrations of PM2.5 and SPM after burning in all of the sparkling fireworks was 0.890. The emissions per firework ranged from 6.5 mg to 151 mg for PM2.5, and from 7.1 mg to 160 mg for SPM. The means of the emissions per combustible amount of the firework ranged from 0.017 to 0.066 mg/mg for PM2.5, and from 0.018 to 0.071 mg/mg for SPM. The influences of the burning time, burning rate and combustible amount of the fireworks on the PM emissions were investigated. As a result, PM2.5 and SPM emissions tend to increase with the burning rates. This suggests that the burning rate of firework have an influence on the PM emissions.

show abstract

Effect of fireworks on ambient air quality in Malta

Cited by 57 publications

References 19 publications

High-time resolution and size-segregated elemental composition in high-intensity pyrotechnic exposures

High-time resolution and size-segregated elemental composition in high-intensity pyrotechnic exposures

PM2.5 Emissions from Hand-Held Sparklers: Chemical Characterization and Health Risk Assessment

Airborne Particulate Matter from Sparkling Fireworks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About