Identification of priority pollutants at an integrated iron and steel facility based on environmental and health impacts in the Yangtze River Delta region, China.

Emissions from the iron and steel industry are a major source of air pollution. To investigate the composition characteristics, estimate the secondary transformation potential, and assess the ecological risk and human health risks of air pollutants from iron and steel industry, field measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and trace metals (TMs) were conducted simultaneously from 2020 to 2022 in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, China. The average mixing concentration of VOCs (Σ ₆₄ VOCs) was 58.2 ppbv. Alkanes, alkenes and aromatics were the major components. Benzene and ethylene were the most abundant VOC species. In the O ₃ season, the calculated OH loss rates (L _OH ) and ozone formation potential (OFP) were 10.87 S ^-1 and 181.74 ppbv, respectively, which increased 39.54% and 21.51% compared to the non-O ₃ season. Furthermore, the O ₃ -VOCs-NOx sensitivity indicated that O ₃ formation was under the VOCs-limited regime. The average concentration of total 10 trace metals (Σ ₁₀ TMs) was 226.8 ng m ^-3 , Zn, Pb and Mn were the top abundant TM species. The results also found that Se was extremely contaminated; Pb and Zn was heavily to extremely contaminated; Cu, As and Ni were moderately to heavily contaminated. For lifetime cancer risk, the cumulative carcinogenic risks were 1.84E-5 for children, 6.14E-5 for adults and 1.83E-5 for workers. The carcinogenic risks of individual chemicals cannot be ignored, especially for Cr, Ni, benzene and 1,3-butadiene. The hazard index values for workers and residents were 0.53 and 2.23, respectively, suggesting a high non-carcinogenic risks to the exposed population. These findings deepen the understanding of the pollutant character of the iron and steel industry, and provide theoretical support for policy development on O ₃ pollution treatment and human health in the YRD region, China. For the study area, we recommend utilizing high-quality raw coal, reducing the volatile hydrocarbon content in the sinter feed, and installing absorption device for highly reactive VOC components at the exhaust outlet.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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