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

Abstract

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%).

Larger Submicron Particles for Emissions With Residential Burning in Wintertime San Joaquin Valley (Fresno) than for Vehicle Combustion in Summertime South Coast Air Basin (Fontana)

“…In Fontana, particle mass was nearly 2 times that of the nonrefractory mass in the morning and at night on firework days, and the D M_mode of nonrefractory aerosol components were nearly the same, with the D M_mode falling between 480 and 520 nm. The discrepancy between SEMS and nonrefractory AMS mass on firework days is likely due to high concentrations of heavy metals in firework emissions (Betha & Balasubramanian, ). A bimodal size distribution was observed for nonrefractory organic and nitrate aerosol particles on nonfirework days.…”

Potential health risk for residents around a typical e-waste recycling zone via inhalation of size-fractionated particle-bound heavy metals

“…where DF i is the deposition efficiency of particles in each region; C i is the metal concentration in each particle size (ng m −3 ); and IR is the inhalation rate assumed to be 10 m 3 d −1 for children and 20 m 3 d −1 for adults under normal conditions [18,19]. Because most human activities occur at approximately 1.5 m above the ground, concentrations of heavy metals at the 1.5-m height were used to calculate deposition fluxes in the present study.…”

“…Hence these elements were selected to estimate the ILCR. The formulas for calculating CDI, HQ, and ILCR are as follows [12,19,21,22]:…”

Optical Calibration and Equivalence of a Multiwavelength Thermal/Optical Carbon Analyzer

“…Brown carbon (BrC) (Andreae and Gelencser, 2006;Moosmüller et al, 2011), which absorbs light more efficiently at shorter visible wavelengths (400 to 700 nm) than BC, has become an important research topic because it is an indicator of biomass burning and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation and differs from BC in its effects on radiative transfer. The nature of BrC is especially important in Asian countries where source emissions differ from those of North America and Europe (Betha and Balasubramanian, 2014;Chuesaard et al, 2014;Gargava et al, 2014;Pervez et al, 2015). More information on the light absorption properties of ambient aerosols would be useful, especially if it could be acquired as part of the ongoing chemical speciation networks.…”