Personal exposure to PM<sub>2.5</sub> emitted from typical anthropogenic sources in southern West Africa: chemical characteristics and associated health risks

Abstract

Abstract. Urbanization is an issue that is strongly emerging in southern West Africa (sWA). There is a lack of full understanding on chemical compositions and personal exposure levels to fine particulate matter (hereafter defined as PE PM2.5) and its health risks related to various anthropogenic sources in this region. In this study, PE PM2.5 was studied in dry (January) and wet (July) seasons of 2016 for the first time to characterize the contributions of a domestic fire site (DF) to the exposure of women and a waste burning site (WB) to that of students in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and a motorcycle traffic site (MT) to that of drivers in Cotonou, Benin. The average PE PM2.5 mass concentrations were 331.7±190.7, 356.9±71.9 and 242.8±67.6 µg m−3 at DF, WB and MT sites for women, students and drivers, which were 2.4, 10.3 and 6.4 times the ambient PM2.5 concentrations, respectively. Elevated PE PM2.5 levels in the dry season were found at DF (358.8±100.5 µg m−3), WB (494.3±15.8 µg m−3) and MT (335.1±72.1 µg m−3) sites, on average 15 % higher than that at DF and 55 % higher at both WB and MT sites in the wet season. The seasonal variations were attributed to emission sources, meteorological factors and personal activities. In addition, the results show that geological material (35.8 %, 46.0 % and 42.4 %) and organic matter (34.1 %, 23.3 % and 24.9 %) were the major components of PE PM2.5 at DF, WB and MT sites. It is worth noting that the contribution of heavy metals was higher at WB (1.0 %) than at DF (0.7 %) and MT (0.4 %) sites, strongly influenced by waste burning emission. This results in the highest non-cancer risks of heavy metals to students, 5.1 and 4.8 times the values for women and drivers, respectively. By conducting organic speciation, fingerprints were used to access the exposure and identify the source contributions from typical local anthropogenic sources. The women's exposure concentration to particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) at DF (77.4±47.9 ng m−3) was 1.6 and 2.1 times, respectively, that of students at WB (49.9±30.7 ng m−3) and of drivers at MT (37.0±7.4 ng m−3). This can be associated with the higher contributions from solid fuels' burning and meat grilling activities to women, resulting in a level 5 times in exceedance of the cancer risk safety threshold (1×10-6). Phthalate esters (PAEs), commonly used as plasticizers in products, were in high levels in the student exposure PM2.5 samples (1380.4±335.2 ng m−3), owing to obvious waste burning activities nearby. The drivers' exposures to fossil fuel combustion markers of hopanes in PE PM2.5 at MT (50.9±7.9 ng m−3) was 3.0–3.3 times those for women at DF (17.1±6.4 ng m−3) and students at WB (15.6±6.1 ng m−3). Overall, the current study shows that wood combustion, waste burning, fugitive dust and motor vehicle emissions were the dominant sources of PE PM2.5 and mainly contributed to its toxicities. The exposure to the heavy metals Pb and Mn caused high non-cancer risks to students at WB, while the severe cancer risk of PAHs was found for women at DF via inhalation. The result of this study provides original data, initial perspective of PM2.5 personal exposure and health risk assessment in the developing areas. The information encourages the governments to improve the air quality and living standards of residents in this region.

Physico-chemical characterization of urban aerosols from specific combustion sources in West Africa at Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire and Cotonou in Benin in the frame of the DACCIWA program

“…where [X] atm and [Al] atm are the concentrations of the chemical element X and Al in the atmosphere, respectively, and [X] soil and [Al] soil are the typical concentrations of the element X and Al in the earth's crust, respectively. Al is frequently used as a reference element, assuming that its anthropogenic sources in the atmosphere are negligible (Gao et al, 2002;Cao et al, 2005;Xu et al, 2012). In all sampling sites, EF values typically lower than 5 are obtained for several trace elements (Be, Sc, Ti, V, Fe, Ga, Sr, Nb, Rh, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, Ta, Th, and U).…”

EXPLUME v1.0: a model for personal exposure to ambient O<sub>3</sub> and PM<sub>2.5</sub>

“…Here, time activity is modelled based on available data for the region based on questionnaires. Modelling mobility patterns using smartphones with built-in GPS is an emerging trend in personal exposure assessment (Yu et al, 2019). Combining GPS-derived data on the trajectories of large number of individuals with information from questionnaires on the locations and activities of the population could help overcome a large part of the uncertainties relating to the time activity module developed in this study.…”

Assessing Approaches of Human Inhalation Exposure to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: A Review

“…Fan et al [ 77 ] performed personal sampling on 46 volunteers living in Hong Kong and detected a contribution of 46.8 ± 13.4% of carcinogenic PAHs in the total 16 PAHs. Xu et al [ 78 ] conducted personal sampling on subjects who were directly impacted by anthropogenic sources in an urbanizing region in southwest Africa and found that women’s (exposed to the emission of domestic cooking and heating, 77.4 ng/m 3 ) exposure concentration to 19 PAHs was 1.6 and 2.1 times that of students (exposed to waste burning discharge, 49.9 ng/m 3 ) and drivers (exposed to vehicle emission, 37.0 ng/m 3 ), respectively. Wei et al [ 79 ] measured the 24-h PAH exposure level on security guards, which was mainly generated from vehicular emission, and found it was related to increasing oxidative burdens.…”

“…After loading, PAHs are extracted from the collection materials and analyzed by techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Filter-based sampling can generate a comprehensive pollution profile with the characterization and specified quantification of individual and total PAHs, with multi-particulate sizes and particulate and gaseous phase distributions, as well as the simultaneous PM concentration and other PM-containing constituents if available [ 72 , 73 , 78 , 81 ]. Nevertheless, active samplers can burden users with pump noise and equipment weight.…”

“…A questionnaire is a conventional and low-cost method with general applicability that can provide a detailed personal trajectory containing the location and duration related to exposure sources and activity during a sampling period. Additionally, a questionnaire can obtain a qualitative description of the exposure level through some targeted questions related to, for example, the cooking fuel, the cooking style, the number of cigarettes smoked, and the length of a smoking period [ 78 , 100 ]. However, this approach relies on participants that use field-dependent recall or hand-written diaries, which are completed every sampling day.…”