Chemical composition data (ionic fraction, carbonaceous compounds and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) for PM2.5 were acquired during 2005-2007. years by seasonal sampling campaigns performed at six urban sites in Apulia Region. In addition, an industrial site was considered. Discriminant Function Analysis, Principal Component Analysis and Absolute Principal Component Scores were applied to dataset in order to identify PM2.5 sources and to estimate their contributions to samples mass. Three main sources were obtained for the urban sites: combustion processes, natural sources and secondary particulate. Moreover, the application of Principal Component Analysis on chemical and meteorological data highlighted the influence of temperature and relative humidity on natural sources, and the relevance of pressure on secondary particulate content. In PM2.5, secondary particulate contributed on average with 78% to total mass, while combustion processes and natural sources accounted, respectively, 15% and 6.5% of the fine fraction mass. For this reason the secondary background should be taken into account in order to suggest the efficient abatement strategies to improve local air quality in South of Italy.

Long-range transport of natural and/or anthropogenic particles can contribute significantly to PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations and some European cities often fail to comply with PM daily limit values due to the additional impact of particles from remote sources. For this reason, reliable methodologies to identify long-range transport (LRT) events would be useful to better understand air pollution phenomena and support proper decision-making.This study explores the potential of an integrated and high time-resolved monitoring approach for the identification and characterization of local, regional and long-range transport events of high PM. In particular, the goal of this work was also the identification of time-limited event. For this purpose, a high time-resolved monitoring campaign was carried out at an urban background site in Bari (southern Italy) for about 20days (1st-20th October 2011). The integration of collected data as the hourly measurements of inorganic ions in PM2.5 and their gas precursors and of the natural radioactivity, in addition to the analyses of aerosol maps and hourly back trajectories (BT), provided useful information for the identification and chemical characterization of local sources and trans-boundary intrusions. Non-sea salt (nss) sulfate levels were found to increase when air masses came from northeastern Europe and higher dispersive conditions of the atmosphere were detected. Instead, higher nitrate and lower nss-sulfate concentrations were registered in correspondence with air mass stagnation and attributed to local traffic source. In some cases, combinations of local and trans-boundary sources were observed. Finally, statistical investigations such as the principal component analysis (PCA) applied on hourly ion concentrations and the cluster analyses, the Potential Source Contribution Function (PSCF) and the Concentration Weighted Trajectory (CWT) models computed on hourly back-trajectories enabled to complete a cognitive framework and confirm the influence of aerosol transported from heavily polluted areas on the receptor site.

Purpose This study was aimed to the development of an integrated approach for the characterization of particulate matter (PM) pollution events in the South of Italy. Methods PM10 and PM2.5 daily samples were collected from June to November 2008 at an urban background site located in Bari (Puglia Region, South of Italy). Meteorological data, particle size distributions and atmospheric dispersion conditions were also monitored in order to provide information concerning the different features of PM sources. Results The collected data allowed suggesting four indicators to characterize different PM10 exceedances. PM2.5/PM10 ratio, natural radioactivity, aerosol maps and back-trajectory analysis and particle distributions were considered in order to evaluate the contribution of local anthropogenic sources and to determine the different origins of intrusive air mass coming from long-range transport, such as African dust outbreaks and aerosol particles from Central and Eastern Europe. The obtained results were confirmed by applying principal component analysis to the number particle concentration dataset and by the chemical characterization of the samples (PM10 and PM2.5). Conclusions The integrated approach for PM study suggested in this paper can be useful to support the air quality managers for the development of cost-effective control strategies and the application of more suitable risk management approaches.

This study provided a useful approach for assessing the impact of industrial sources on surrounding, especially in a sensitive industrial area as Taranto (South of Italy). Taranto is one of the most industrialized Italian towns, where several emission sources operate simultaneously in proximity to the urban settlement. An intensive monitoring campaign of PAHs was carried out from January 28th to July 30th, 2011, in seven sites located in residential settlement around the industrial area and in the city center. The collected data were integrated with the information about wind direction and speed by means bivariate polarplot in order to characterize and localize the industrial sources. High BaP concentrations were detected especially when B/T ratio values excedeed 1 and all receptor sites were downwind to the steel plant. Moreover, in order to discriminate among PAH sources and quantify their contributions, a source apportionment analysis of the collected data was provided by means Princip al component Analysis (PCA) and Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) methods. Finally, the processing of PMF5.0 output by bivariate polar plot, confirmed the impact of steel plant on both industrial sites downwind the steel plant and the city center. B[a]P apportionment was quite similar for industrial and urban sites: the traffic source contributed only 11% and 24% to B[a]P measured at two sites, respectively. Therefore, the proximity of Taranto downtown to industrial pole makes negligible all other source contributions to PAH concentrations.

The atmosphere is a carrier on which some natural and anthropogenic organic and inorganic chemicals are transported, and the wet and dry deposition events are the most important processes that remove those chemicals, depositing it on soil and water. A wide variety of different collectors were tested to evaluate site-specificity, seasonality and daily variability of settleable particle concentrations. Deposition fluxes of POPs showed spatial and seasonal variations, diagnostic ratios of PAHs on deposited particles, allowed the discrimination between pyrolytic or petrogenic sources. Congener pattern analysis and bulk deposition fluxes in rural sites confirmed long-range atmospheric transport of PCDDs/Fs. More and more sophisticated and newly designed deposition samplers have being used for characterization of deposited mercury, demonstrating the importance of rain scavenging and the relatively higher magnitude of Hg deposition from Chinese anthropogenic sources. Recently biological monitors demonstrated that PAH concentrations in lichens were comparable with concentrations measured in a conventional active sampler in an outdoor environment. In this review the authors explore the methodological approaches used for the assessment of atmospheric deposition, from the analysis of the sampling methods, the analytical procedures for chemical characterization of pollutants and the main results from the scientific literature.

Organic and elemental carbon (OC-EC) were measured in 360 PM2.5 samples collected from April 2012 to February 2013 at six provinces in the Veneto region, to determine the factors affecting the carbonaceous aerosol variations. The 60 daily samples have been collected simultaneously in all sites during 10 consecutive days for 6months (April, June, August, October, December and February). OC ranged from 0.98 to 22.34μg/m3, while the mean value was 5.5μg/m3, contributing 79% of total carbon. EC concentrations fluctuated from 0.19 to 11.90μg/m3 with an annual mean value of 1.31μg/m3 (19% of the total carbon). The monthly OC concentration gradually increased from April to December. The EC did not vary in accordance with OC. However the highest values for both parameters were recorded in the cold period. The mean OC/EC ratio is 4.54, which is higher than the values observed in most of the other European cities. The secondary organic carbon (SOC) contributed for 69% of the total OC and this was confirmed by both the approaches OC/EC minimum ratio and regression. The results show that OC, EC and SOC exhibited higher concentration during winter months in all measurement sites, suggesting that the stable atmosphere and lower mixing play important role for the accumulation of air pollutant and hasten the condensation or adsorption of volatile organic compounds over the Veneto region. Significant meteorological factors controlling OC and EC were investigated by fitting linear models and using a robust procedure based on weighted likelihood, suggesting that low wind speed and temperature favour accumulation of emissions from local sources. Conditional probability function and conditional bivariate probability function plots indicate that both biomass burning and vehicular traffic are probably the main local sources for carbonaceous particulate matter emissions in two selected cities.

Around 50% of the world’s population, particularly in developing countries, uses biomass as one of the most common fuels. Biomass combustion releases a considerable amount of various incomplete combustion products, including particulate matter (PM) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The paper presents the results of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) measurements in six houses equipped with wood burning stoves or fireplaces as heating systems. The houses were monitored for 48-h periods in order to collect PM10 samples and measure PAH concentrations. The average, the maximum and the lowest values of the 12-h PM10 concentration were 68.6 μg/m3, 350.7 μg/m3 and 16.8 μg/m3 respectively. The average benzo[a]pyrene 12-h concentration was 9.4 ng/m3, while the maximum and the minimum values were 24.0 ng/m3 and 1.5 ng/m3, respectively. Continuous monitoring of PM10, PAHs, Ultra Fine Particle (UFP) and Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) was performed in order to study the progress of pollution phenomena due to biomass burning, their trends and contributions to IAQ. The results show a great heterogeneity of impacts on IAQ in terms of magnitude and behavior of the considered pollutants’ concentrations. This variability is determined by not only different combustion technologies or biomass quality, but overall by different ignition mode, feeding and flame management, which can also be different for the same house. Moreover, room dimensions and ventilation were significant factors for pollution dispersion. The increase of PM10, UFP and PAH concentrations, during lighting, was always detected and relevant. Continuous monitoring allowed singling out contributions of other domestic sources of considered pollutants such as cooking and cigarettes. Cooking contribution produced an impact on IAQ in same cases higher than that of the biomass heating system.

Aim of this study is the investigation of processes leading to atmospheric pollutants formation and ageing in Milan, Po valley, i.e. one of the main hotspot region in Europe. Few 1-hour time resolution campaigns were accomplished in Milan urban area and none of these dealt with simultaneous characterization of atmospheric pollutants in both gas and particle phase. The present study is based on a thorough analysis of hourly data of atmospheric pollutants and of main PM2.5 compounds, and it includes several soluble inorganic aerosols (Cl-, NO2-, NO3-, SO42-, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Na+, NH4+), gases (HCl, HNO2, HNO3, NH3, NO, NO2, O3, SO2) organic, elemental and black carbon and meteorological parameters. The data proceed from an intensive sampling campaign in urban background Milan in summer 2012 (Bigi et al., 2017). Data analysis methods used include mean diurnal pattern on weekdays and Sundays, pollution roses, bivariate polar plots and statistical models using backtrajectories. Results show how nitrous acid (HONO) was mainly formed heterogeneously at nighttime, with a dependence of its formation rate on NO2 consistent with observations during the last HONO campaign in Milan in summer 1998, although since 1998 a drop in HONO levels occurred following to the decrease of its precursors. Nitrate showed two main formation mechanisms: one occurring through N2O5 at nighttime and leading to nitrate formation onto existing particles; another occurring both daytime and nighttime following the homogeneous reaction of ammonia gas with nitric acid gas. Air masses reaching Milan influenced nitrate formation depending on their content in ammonia and the timing of arrival. Notwithstanding the low level of SO2 in Milan, its peaks were associated to point source emissions in the Po valley or shipping and power plant emissions SW of Milan, beyond the Apennines. A distinctive pattern for HCl was observed, featured by an afternoon peak and a morning minimum, and best correlated to atmospheric temperature, although it was not possible to identify any specific source. The ratio of primary-dominated organic carbon and elemental carbon on hourly PM2.5 resulted 1.7. Black carbon was highly correlated to elemental carbon and the average mass absorption coefficient resulted MAC= 13.8 0.2 m2 g1. It is noteworthy how air quality for a large metropolitan area, in a confined valley and under enduring atmospheric stability, is nonetheless influenced by sources within and outside the valley.

The combustion of pruning residues of olive trees in field is a common practice in South of Italy. Since fields are usually close to densely populated areas, the biomass burning emission may cause seasonally increasing exposure to air pollutants and may present a potential health risk for the population. The goal of this work was to carry out the chemical characterization of PM originated from open burning of agricultural biomass and to provide tracer species or concentration ratios characteristics of this source. In this work preliminary results about the chemical characterization of PM10 aerosol collected a few meters from the plume of a bonfire and throughout its duration are shown. In particular the data showed that during open burning of olive tree residues, PM10 mean concentrations were about fifty times higher than PM10 collected at background site in no biomass burning event. Moreover the particulate matter composition was especially enriched in K, OC, Pb and PAHs, and in particular in benz[a]anthracene and benzo[a]pyrene; this pollutants in fact show the biggest Enrichment Factor values. The BaP/BghiP ratio registered in biomass burning event (1.88) was three times greater than in no event condition (0.57); and this ratio result better than IP/[IP+BghiP] ratio for discriminating between two emission sources of PAHs, such as diesel exhaust and biomass burning. Finally BaA has been demonstrated to be a better marker of biomass combustion source with respect to BaP and the other PAHs.

The combustion of pruning residues of olive trees in field is a common practice in South of Italy. Since fields are usually close to densely populated areas, the biomass burning emission may cause seasonally increasing exposure to air pollutants and may lead to a potential health risk for the population. The goal of this work was to carry out the chemical characterization of PM deriving from open burning of agricultural biomass and to identify tracer species or concentration ratios characteristics of this source. The collected data showed that during open burning of olive tree residues, PM10 mean concentration was about fifty times higher than PM10 collected at background site in no biomass burning event. Moreover the particulate matter composition was especially enriched in K, OC and Polyciclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benz[a]anthracene and benzo[a]pyrene.

In recent years, the use of synthetic materials in building and furnishing, the adoption of new lifestyles, the extensive use of products for environmental cleaning and personal hygiene have contributed to the deterioration of indoor air quality and introduced new sources of risk to humans. Indoor environments include home, workplaces such as offices, public buildings such as hospitals, schools, kindergartens, sports halls, libraries, restaurants and bars, theaters and cinemas and finally cabins of vehicles. Indoor environments in schools have been of particular public concern. According to recent studies, children aged between 3 and 14 spend 90 % of the day indoors both in winter and summer. Moreover, children have greater susceptibility to some environmental pollutants than adults, because they breathe higher volumes of air relative to their body weights, and their tissues and organs are actively growing. In this review, the authors explore the methodological approaches used for the assessment of air quality in schools: monitoring strategies, sampling and analysis techniques and summarizing an overview of main findings from scientific literature concerning the most common pollutants found in school environments.

A VOC monitoring was carried out inside and outside a multi-storey car park in order to characterize the emission profile of vehicular traffic source in an indoor environment. BTEX, and in particular toluene, were the most abundant compounds in all monitored sites, with different compositions between indoor parking areas and outdoor sites. The motor vehicle exhaust and gasoline vapor emission in these enclosed parking garages were characterized by diffusion or degradation phenomena different from those that occur in urban areas as the BTEX compositions, their ratios and their reactivity with OH and with NO3 radicals demonstrate. In detail, xylenes/BTEX and ethylbenzene/BTEX ratios in indoor environments were twice than those in outdoor ones, while toluene/BTEX ratio resulted half than that obtained in outdoor sites. In this work, BTEX concentrations depend both on number of vehicles, on vehicular characteristics (age, emission control technology, fuel quality etc.) and on factors related to the characteristics of parking facilities (volume of the monitored areas, indoor or open facilities, ventilation systems, size and maintenance). However, it was found that the external contribution (intrusion of pollutants from outdoor and from the other floors) and the influence of mixing air (removal of pollutants by ventilation and air exchange) on BTEX concentrations were not significant if inside the multi-storey car park there was a strong source (due to the number of vehicles) such happened in the first and second floors and along the ramp that connected them.

In order to identify the different fugitive emission sources in the industrial area of Taranto and assess their impact on air quality in the surrounding urban area, an intensive monitoring campaign of PM10 and PM2.5 was carried out from January 28th to July 30th, 2011, in seven sites: four next to industrial plants and the other three distributed in different areas of Taranto. The processing by bivariate polarplot of data about the PAHs concentrations, diagnostic ratios among PAHs, and B/T ratios, resulted an useful tool to identify and assess the impact of fugitive emission in specific anemometric conditions. Moreover, the source apportionment analysis allowed to quantify the contribution of each source to the concentrations of pollutants measured at receptor site.

L‚area industriale di Taranto  ad oggi annoverata tra le zone ad alto rischio ambientale ed inclusa nell’elenco dei siti inquinati di interesse nazionale a causa della presenza di un ampio complesso industriale in prossimit… dell’insediamento urbano. Nonostante gli importanti risultati conseguiti dalle politiche di controllo delle emissioni convogliate, la complessit… degli impianti che caratterizzano l‚area industriale tarantina rende difficile l‚identificazione e la localizzazione delle sorgenti che contribuiscono alle emissioni diffuse e altamente impattanti sulla qualit… dell‚aria nelle aree urbane limitrofe. Pertanto in questo lavoro  stato effettuato un monitoraggio intensivo degli IPA nel PM10 al fine di discriminare le diverse sorgenti diffuse e di determinare l‚impatto di ciascuna esse sui siti recettori sensibili in base ai principali parametri meteorologici che determinano la dispersione e trasporto in atmosfera degli inquinanti. In particolare  stata condotta una campagna di monitoraggio di PM10 in 7 siti di campionamento dislocati intorno all‚area industriale tarantina e disposti lungo le direzione dei venti dominanti. Il campionamento di PM10 per la determinazione delle concentrazioni giornaliere di IPA,  stato effettuato dal 1Gennaio al 30 Luglio 2011 con campionatori basso volume SWAM bicanale (FAI Instruments s.r.l.). Contemporaneamente nei diversi siti sono stati monitorati le concentrazioni orarie di IPA totali utilizzando un analizzatore in continuo (ECOCHEM PAS 2000), i principali parametri meteo, la capacit… disperdente dell‚atmosfera e le concentrazioni di SO2, NOx, Benzene (B) e Toluene (T). L‚elaborazione dei dati di concentrazioni dei singoli IPA, dei rapporti diagnostici e dei rapporti B/T mediante polar plot bivariati hanno permesso di identificare le sorgenti di emissione diffuse e di valutarne l‚impatto in corrispondenza di venti tali da permettere il trasporto degli inquinanti dall‚area industriale sul sito

SFX Get it!(opens in a new window)|View at Publisher| Export | Download | Add to List | More... Advances in Meteorology Volume 2014, 28 August 2014, Article number 598301 Monitoring of the deposition of PAHs and metals produced by a steel plant in Taranto (Italy) (Article) Amodio, M.a, De Gennaro, G.bc, Di Gilio, A.b, Tutino, M.b a LEnviroS Srl, Spin-Off of University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Orabona 4, Bari, Italy b Apulia Regions Environmental Protection Agency (ARPA Puglia), Corso Trieste 27, Bari, Italy c Chemistry Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Orabona 4, Bari, Italy View additional affiliations View references (50) Abstract A high time-resolved monitoring campaign of bulk deposition of PAHs and metals was conducted near the industrial area and at an urban background site in province of Taranto (Italy) in order to evaluate the impact of the biggest European steel plant. The deposition fluxes of the sum of detected PAHs at the industrial area ranged from 92 to 2432 ng m-2d-1. In particular the deposition fluxes of BaP, BaA, and BkF were, on average, 10, 14, and 8 times higher than those detected at the urban background site, respectively. The same finding was for metals. The deposition fluxes of Ni (19.8 μg m-2d-1) and As (2.2 μg m-2d-1) at the industrial site were about 5 times higher than those at the urban background site, while the deposition fluxes of Fe (57 mg m-2d-1) and Mn (1.02 mg m-2d-1) about 31 times higher. Precipitation and wind speed played an important role in PAH deposition fluxes. Fe and Mn fluxes at the industrial site resulted high when wind direction favored the transport of air masses from the steel plant to the receptor site. The impact of the industrial area was also confirmed by IP/(IP + BgP), IP/BgP, and BaP/BgP diagnostic ratios.

This chapter discusses the most used methodologies for PM measurement and its chemical characterization. Nowadays, many different instruments and analytical techniques for these purposes are available and the choice of the most suitable one depends on the aim of measurement; therefore, the principles of the methods for PM measurement will be briefly described. Regarding PM chemical composition, techniques for determination of identifiable components, organic and inorganic, will be presented. An overview on conventional techniques and new generation instruments designed to meet the various. goals of the monitoring will also be provided.

In recent years the use of synthetic materials in building and furnishing, the adoption of new lifestyles, the extensive use of products for environmental cleaning and personal hygiene have contributed to the deterioration of the indoor air quality (IAQ) and introduced new sources of risk to humans. Indoor environments include home work places such as offices, public buildings such as hospitals, schools, kindergartens, sports halls, libraries, restaurants and bars, theatres and cinemas and finally cabins of vehicles. Indoor environments in schools have been of particular public concern. According to recent studies, children aged between 3 and 14 spend 90 % of the day indoors both in winter and summer. Adverse environmental effects on the learning and performance of students in schools could have both immediate and lifelong consequences, for the students and for society. In fact, children have greater susceptibility to some environmental pollutants than adults, because they breathe higher volumes of air relative to their body weights and their tissues and organs are actively growing. This review describes methods for the assessment of indoor air quality in schools. To this aim, monitoring strategies for sampling and measurement of indoor air pollutants will be discussed. The paper’s goal involves four major points: (1) characteristics of indoor environments, chemical pollutants and their sources within school; (2) monitoring strategies; (3) sampling and analysis techniques; and (4) an overview of findings from scientific literature. Finally, we summarizes available knowledge about IAQ in schools highlighting key gaps and suggesting priority topics and strategies for research. Moreover, it provides useful tools to support the stakeholder for development of strategies of prevention and mitigation in school environments in order to improve the indoor air quality.

his paper analyses elemental (EC), organic (OC) and total carbon (TC) concentration in PM2.5 and PM10 samples collected over the last few years within several national and European projects at 37 remote, rural, urban, and traffic sites across the Italian peninsula.The purpose of the study is to obtain a picture of the spatial and seasonal variability of these aerosol species in Italy, and an insight into sources, processes and effects of meteorological conditions.OC and EC showed winter maxima and summer minima at urban and rural locations and an opposite behaviour at remote high altitude sites, where they increase during the warm period due to the rising of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL). The seasonal averages of OC are higher during winter compared to summer at the rural sites in the Po Valley (from 1.4 to 3.5 times), opposite to what usually occurs at rural locations, where OC increases during the warm period. This denotes the marked influence of urban areas on the surrounding rural environment in this densely populated region.The different types of sites exhibit marked differences in the average concentrations of carbonaceous aerosol and OC/EC ratio. This ratio is less sensitive to atmospheric processing than OC and EC concentrations, and hence more representative of different source types. Remote locations are characterised by the lowest levels of OC and especially EC, with OC/EC ratios ranging from 13 to 20, while the maximum OC and EC concentrations are observed at road-traffic influenced urban sites, where the OC/EC ratio ranges between 1 and 3. The highest urban impacts of OC and EC relative to remote and rural background sites occur in the Po Valley, especially in the city of Milan, which has the highest concentrations of PM and TC and low values of the OC/EC ratio. •We compared OC and EC data from different sites across the Italian Peninsula.•OC and EC concentration maxima occur during winter and minima during summer at all except remote sites.•Higher OC levels characterize the Po Valley compared to the rest of Italy both during summer and winter.•Biomass burning for residential heating strongly affects winter OC concentrations in the Po Valley.•Carbonaceous matter contribution to PM2.5 ranges between 37% at rural and 47% at traffic sites, on an annual basis.

In the South of Italy, it is common for farmers to burn pruning waste from olive trees in spring. In order to evaluate the impact of the biomass burning source on the physical and chemical characteristics of the particulate matter (PM) emitted by these fires, a PM monitoring campaign was carried out in an olive grove. Daily PM10 samples were collected for 1 week, when there were no open fires, and when biomass was being burned, and at two different distances from the fires. Moreover, an optical particle counter and a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) analyzer were used to measure the high time-resolved dimensional distribution of particles emitted and total PAHs concentrations, respectively. Chemical analysis of PM10 samples identified organic and inorganic components such as PAHs, ions, elements, and carbonaceous fractions (OC, EC). Analysis of the collected data showed the usefulness of organic and inorganic tracer species and of PAH diagnostic ratios for interpreting the impact of biomass fires on PM levels and on its chemical composition. Finally, high time-resolved monitoring of particle numbers and PAH concentrations was performed before, during, and after biomass burning, and these concentrations were seen to be very dependent on factors such as weather conditions, combustion efficiency, and temperature (smoldering versus flaming conditions), and moisture content of the wood burned.