Abstract
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in both gas and total suspended particles were measured at Gosan, Jeju Island in Korea, a remote background site, for 15 days (March 29-April 12, 2002). During the sampling period, a severe three-day Asian dust (AD) event originating from Mongolia and northern China was observed throughout the Korean Peninsula and Jeju Island. In addition, pollution (PO) and normal (NO) periods were also identified based on the levels of anthropogenic pollutants. Despite a large difference of PM 10 concentrations between the AD and PO periods, the levels of particulate PAHs in both periods were comparable (2.7±1.0 and 2.4±0.5ngm -3, respectively) since they were determined by the concentration of anthropogenic PM 2.5 transported from industrial areas of China. In the AD period, the level of gaseous PAHs, which were mostly from local sources, was the lowest due to strong winds; the gas/particle partitioning was close to equilibrium as the effect of long-range transport was manifested. The results of backward air trajectories, correlation analysis, and diagnostic ratios show that long-range transport of particulate PAHs produced by coal/biomass burning in China could strongly affect the levels and patterns of PAHs at Gosan, Korea.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 79-87 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Hazardous Materials |
| Volume | 227-228 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 15 Aug 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Korea Ministry of Environment as an Eco-technopia 21 project under grant 2001-44001-8 , the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) , and the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund . This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (Nos. 2010-0003424 and 2011-0028597 ).
Keywords
- Anthropogenic pollutants
- Gas/particle partitioning
- PM
- Source identification