Trends in arsenic levels in PM10 and PM2.5 aerosol fractions in an industrialized area

Abstract

Arsenic is a toxic element that affects human health and it is widely distributed in the environment. In the area of study, the main Spanish and second European industrial ceramic cluster, the main source of arsenic aerosol is related to the impurities in some boracic minerals used in the ceramic process. Epidemiological studies on the cancer occurrence in The PM 10 , PM 2.5 and its arsenic content show a sharp decrease in recent years associated with the economic downturn, which hit severely the production of ceramic materials in the area under study. The production decrease due to the economic crisis combined with several technological improvements in recent years such as substitution of boron, which contains As impurities as raw material, have reduced the concentrations of PM 10 , PM 2.5 and As in air to a extent that currently met the existing European regulations. 3

Characterization of particulate matter concentrations and bioaerosol on each floor at a building in Seoul, Korea

“…Airborne particulate pollution is known to be a very serious problem in Beijing, one that is even worse in winter than in summer (Sun et al 2004). In this environment, the ratios of PM 2.5 /PM 10 were found to be 0.45-0.48 in summer and 0.52-0.73 in the winter (Garcia-Aleix et al 2014;Pekey et al 2010;Sun et al 2004). The ratios of PM 2.5 /PM 10 in the present study are relatively low compared to the study conducted in Beijing; however, we can consider that the maximum value concentrations of PM 2.5 are major contributors to pollution in Seoul.…”

Health Effects Associated with Inhalation of Airborne Arsenic Arising from Mining Operations

“…The authors postulated that widespread industrial switching from coal combustion to oil and gas as a domestic energy source for space heating was the probable cause for the overall decline in atmospheric arsenic in the UK [26]. Similar results were recorded in an industrial area in Spain, whereby reductions in atmospheric arsenic concentrations were significantly associated with decreases in industrial activities, specifically the production of ceramic materials [27].…”

“…As reviewed in Matschulatt [3], copper and zinc smelting activities contribute of 12,800 and 2210 t of arsenic respectively into the atmosphere per year, whereas steel production contributes a comparatively lower annual quantity of 60 t per annum. It should also be noted that in some industrial localities, smelting and other processes associated with the manufacturing of ceramic materials represent important sources of arsenic in the atmosphere [27]. Smelting operations produce the greatest localized air and soil arsenic concentrations while coal combustion distributes arsenic to the air in substantially lower concentrations over a wider area [73].…”

“…Particle segregation of mine waste can occur during airborne transport, thereby reducing the size of the individual particles deposited [17]. In addition to mining operation type, atmospheric contaminant concentrations are also influenced by the distance and position of a sampling site in relation to the source, the height of the source (e.g., chimney or tailings pile), the type of dust suppression or flue gas cleaning, the exit velocity of the flue gas, and the prevailing wind speed [26] as well as changes in industrial technologies [27].…”

Analytical approaches for arsenic determination in air: A critical review

“…The variety of digestion procedures is high, and almost each research group uses its own. The digestion of glass filters has been performed with HNO 3 , heating in a sand bath (Šerbula et al [75]) or a heating block (Pandey et al [64] for As determination in PM10, aided by microwave radiation [48,78,79]. Fang et al [84] employed the same mixture and heating instead of microwave.…”