Evaluation of floor-wise pollution status and deposition behavior of potentially toxic elements and nanoparticles in air conditioner dust during urbanistic development

Muhammad Ubaid Ali; Guijian Liu; Balal Yousaf; Habib Ullah; Samina Irshad; Rafay Ahmed; Mudassar Hussain; Audil Rashid

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.005

Evaluation of floor-wise pollution status and deposition behavior of potentially toxic elements and nanoparticles in air conditioner dust during urbanistic development

J Hazard Mater. 2019 Mar 5:365:186-195. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.005. Epub 2018 Nov 3.

Authors

Muhammad Ubaid Ali¹, Guijian Liu², Balal Yousaf³, Habib Ullah⁴, Samina Irshad⁵, Rafay Ahmed⁶, Mudassar Hussain⁷, Audil Rashid⁸

Affiliations

¹ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China. Electronic address: ubaid@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
² CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China. Electronic address: lgj@ustc.edu.cn.
³ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710075, China. Electronic address: balal@ustc.edu.cn.
⁴ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China. Electronic address: Habib901@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China. Electronic address: saminakhan@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
⁶ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China. Electronic address: malikrafay@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
⁷ CAS-Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and the Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China. Electronic address: mudassir@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
⁸ EcoHealth Research Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Electronic address: audil@uaar.edu.cn.

PMID: 30439618
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.11.005

Abstract

The study was undertaken to investigate deposition behaviors of various size-segregated particles and indoor air quality using dust accumulated on the air conditioner filter acting as a sink for PTEs and nanoparticles that can pose a significant health risk. However, the particulate matter size and chemical composition in AC dust and its relationship with PTEs remains uncertain. Current study aims to investigate the PTEs and nanoparticles composition of AC dust using different analytical approaches including ICP-MS, XRD, XPS, SEM/TEM along with EDS and Laser Diffraction particle size analyzer. The mean concentration of PTEs like Al, As, Cd, Cu, Li, Pb, Sb, Se, Sn, Ti, V and Zn exceeded the corresponding background value. Pb, As, Sn, Sb, Cd were categorizing under geo-accumulation index class IV. Most of the particles were found to be > 100 μm and it decreased significantly with increase in floor altitude. A significantly negative correlation was found between particles size and PTEs concentration showing a significant increase in PTEs content with decrease in particles size. The XPS results showed dominant peaks for TiO₂, Ti-O-N, As₂O₃, Fe⁺³, Fe⁺², Al-OH and Al₂0₃. Additionally, As, Pb, Si and Fe were dominant metallic nanoparticles identified using SEM/TEM along with EDS.

Keywords: Air conditioner dust; nanoparticles; potential toxic elements; urban areas.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't