On-Road Measurements of Ultrafine Particles and Associated Air Pollutants in a Densely Populated Area of Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Spatial distributions of ultrafine particles (UFPs; 6 < D p < 560 nm) and related gaseous and particulate pollutants were estimated from on-road measurements undertaken on busy roadways of Seoul, Korea, using a mobile laboratory (ML). The objectives of the study were to determine the spatial variations in UFP size distributions and concentrations of associated gaseous and particulate pollutants and to observe the relationships of UFP number concentrations with other pollutants on roadways in an urban area in Korea. The pollutants associated with diesel vehicles such as black carbon (BC) and particlebound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PM-PAHs) exhibited a high determination coefficient (r 2 = 0.65), indicating the influence of diesel vehicles on emissions in the study area. Further supporting evidence for the influence of diesel vehicles on emissions was given by the higher determination coefficients of PM-PAHs and BC concentrations with larger sizeclassified particles, ranging from 60 < D p < 220 nm, than with total UFP number concentrations or smaller particles in the 6 < D p < 60 nm size range. Peak concentrations of measured pollutants were observed mostly at intersections, reflecting the relationships of transient driving modes (i.e., deceleration and acceleration) with emissions of UFPs, associated pollutants, and concentrated traffic volumes at such locations.

Black Carbon and Particulate Matter Concentrations in Eastern Mediterranean Urban Conditions: An Assessment Based on Integrated Stationary and Mobile Observations

“…The large differences in the PN 1-0.01 concentrations of submicron aerosols between on-road and off-road measurements in this remote area were consistent with previous near-road aerosol measurements [14]. The differences are thought to be due to the dispersion and dilution while aerosols are transported away from the road, where car emissions are concentrated the most, as illustrated by mobile laboratory measurements [4,6,13].…”

“…Usually, the traffic activity is characterized by two main rush hours (morning and afternoon) on workdays [53][54][55][56][57]. Such diurnal patterns have not only been reported in Jordan, but also in many other urban environments worldwide [35,53,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]; differences might be due to the variations related to traffic activities and vehicle type mix [6,16,18,25]. For instance, Rahman et al [53] reported a workday PN 1-0.01 diurnal pattern at an urban site in Brisbane (Australia); the concentrations were close to 9 × 10 3 cm −3 during the morning and afternoon rush hours.…”

“…This mobile laboratory was used to quantify emissions of greenhouse gases from a variety of urban/industrial points and area emission sources [3]. Since 2000, many variants of mobile laboratories have emerged such as the PSI, TRAKER, SNIFFER, EMMA, AERO-TRAM, ML, PMetro, and TAPL, among others [4][5][6][7]. The TRAKER was introduced in 2003 to measure road dust emissions; it was improved in the subsequent setups [8][9][10][11][12].…”

Ultrafine Particles and PM2.5 at Three Urban Air Monitoring Stations in Northern Taiwan from 2011 to 2013

“…In the past, numerous studies used the Fast Mobility Particle Sizer (FMPS) (Westerdahl et al, 2009;Sabaliauskas et al, 2012;Betha et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2015) or the Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) coupled with the condensation particle counter (CPC) (Chen et al, 2010a;Breitner et al, 2011;Jayaratne et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2011;Gao et al, 2012;Young et al, 2012;Cheung et al, 2013;Young et al, 2013;Cheng et al, 2014) to investigate the number concentrations of UFPs. Most of the researches have shown that both local rush hour traffic emission and new particle formation (NPF) play key roles in the diurnal variation of UFPs concentrations, in which two concentration peaks in the morning and evening could be attributed to traffic emission, while one peak in the afternoon is due to NPF (Young et al, 2012;Cheung et al, 2013;Young et al, 2013;Betha et al, 2014;Nikolova et al, 2014).…”

Detection of Hormone-Like and Genotoxic Activities in Indoor Dust from Taiwan Using a Battery of in Vitro Bioassays

“…Their outdoor sources include steel plants, coal fired power plants, vehicle emissions, municipal solid waste incinerators, biomass burning, whereas indoor sources can be from building and furnishing materials, heating and cooking facilities, cigarette smoke, incense burning, and etc. (Madany et al, 1994, Li et al, 2005Fang et al, 2004;Kume et al, 2007;Amodio et al, 2013;Da et al, 2013;Park et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2013;Li et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2015). The presence of PAHs in indoor dust, in particular the carcinogenic and mutagenic PAHs with 4-7 rings, may pose serious threats to human health.…”