A comparison of PM exposure related to emission hotspots in a hot and humid urban environment: Concentrations, compositions, respiratory deposition, and potential health risks

Publication date: 1 December 2017
Source:Science of The Total Environment, Volumes 599–600
Author(s): Siming You, Zhiyi Yao, Yanjun Dai, Chi-Hwa Wang
Particle number concentration, particle size distribution, and size-dependent chemical compositions were measured at a bus stop, alongside a high way, and at an industrial site in a tropical city. It was found that the industry case had 4.93×10⁷–7.23×10⁷ and 3.44×10⁴–3.69×10⁴#/m³ higher concentration of particles than the bus stop and highway cases in the range of 0.25–0.65μm and 2.5–32μm, respectively, while the highway case had 6.01×10⁵ and 1.86×10³#/m³ higher concentration of particles than the bus stop case in the range of 0.5–1.0μm and 5.0–32μm, respectively. Al, Fe, Na, and Zn were the most abundant particulate inorganic elements for the traffic-related cases, while Zn, Mn, Fe, and Pb were abundant for the industry case. Existing respiratory deposition models were employed to analyze particle and element deposition distributions in the human respiratory system with respect to some potential exposure scenarios related to bus stop, highway, and industry, respectively. It was shown that particles of 0–0.25μm and 2.5–10.0μm accounted for around 74%, 74%, and 70% of the particles penetrating into the lung region, respectively. The respiratory deposition rates of Cr and Ni were 170 and 220 ng/day, and 55 and 140ng/day for the highway and industry scenarios, respectively. Health risk assessment was conducted following the US EPA supplemented guidance to estimate the risk of inhalation exposure to the selected elements (i.e. Cr, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, and Zn) for the three scenarios. It was suggested that Cr poses a potential carcinogenic risk with the excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) of 2.1–98×10⁻⁵ for the scenarios. Mn poses a potential non-carcinogenic risk in the industry scenario with the hazard quotient (HQ) of 0.98. Both Ni and Mn may pose potential non-carcinogenic risk for people who are involved with all the three exposure scenarios.

Graphical abstract

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