Ambient concentrations of PM(10) and associated major and trace elements were measured over the cold and the warm season of 2007 at two sites located in the Rhodes Island (Greece), in Eastern Mediterranean, aimed at source apportionment by Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) receptor modeling. Source chemical profiles, necessary in CMB modeling, were obtained for a variety of emission sources that could possibly affect the study area, including sea spray, geological material, soot emissions from the nearby oil-fuelled thermal power plant, and other anthropogenic activities, such as vehicular traffic, residential oil combustion, wood burning, and uncontrolled open-air burning of agricultural biomass and municipal waste. Source apportionment of PM(10) and elemental components was carried out by employing an advanced CMB version, the Robotic Chemical Mass Balance model (RCMB). Vehicular emissions were found to be major PM(10) contributor accounting, on average, for 36.8% and 31.7% during the cold period, and for 40.9% and 39.2% in the warm period at the two sites, respectively. The second largest source of ambient PM(10), with minor seasonal variation, was secondary sulfates (mainly ammonium and calcium sulfates), with total average contribution around 16.5% and 18% at the two sites. Soil dust was also a remarkable source contributing around 22% in the warm period, whereas only around 10% in the cold season. Soot emitted from the thermal power plant was found to be negligible contributor to ambient PM(10) (<1%), however it appeared to appreciably contribute to the ambient V and Ni (11.3% and 5.1%, respectively) at one of the sites during the warm period, when electricity production is intensified. Trajectory analysis did not indicate any transport of Sahara dust; on the contrary, long range transport of soil dust from arid continental regions of Minor Asia and of biomass burning aerosol from the countries surrounding the Black Sea was considered possible.
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