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Phytosampling—a supplementary tool for particulate matter (PM) speciation characterization.

Authors :
Guo, Chuqi
Hasan, Farhana
Lay, Dean
Dela Cruz, Albert Leo N.
Ghimire, Ajit
Lomnicki, Slawo M.
Source :
Environmental Science & Pollution Research; Aug2021, Vol. 28 Issue 29, p39310-39321, 12p
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

Ambient air particulate matter (PM) and PM-associated environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) have been documented to contribute to pollution-related health effects. Studies of ambient air PM potentially bear artifacts stemming from the collection methods. We have investigated the applicability of PM phytosampling (PHS) as a supplementary tool to a classic PM sampler in respect of achieving better PM chemical composition assessment (primarily organic fraction). Phytosampling is a static PM collection method relying on the particle entrapment by the plant's leaf through electrostatic forces and surface trichomes. We have investigated the differences in the EPFR and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) speciation and concentration on ambient air PM for PHS and high-volume PM sampler (HVS). The advantages of PHS are easy particle recovery from the matrix, collection under natural environmental conditions, and the ability to apply a dense collection network to accurately represent spatial pollutant distribution. The experimental results show that the PHS can provide valuable speciation information, sometimes different from that observed for HVS. For PM collected by PHS, we detected the larger contribution of oxygen-centered EPFRs, different decay behavior, and more consistent PAH distribution between different PM sizes compared to the PM from HVS. These results indicate that the isolation of samples from the ambient during HVS sampling and exposure to high-volume airflow may alter the chemical composition of the samples, while the PHS method could provide details on the original speciation and concentration and be more representative of the PM surface. However, PHS cannot evaluate an absolute air concentration of PM, so it serves as an excellent supplementary tool to work in conjunction with the standard PM collection method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
09441344
Volume :
28
Issue :
29
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Environmental Science & Pollution Research
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
151566288
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13292-z