Health Risk Assessment of Inhalation Exposure to Airborne Particle-Bound Nitrated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Urban and Suburban Areas of South China

Peng Gao; Feng Deng; Wei-Shan Chen; Yi-Jia Zhong; Xiao-Lu Cai; Wen-Min Ma; Jian Hu; Shu-Ran Feng

doi:10.3390/ijerph192315536

Health Risk Assessment of Inhalation Exposure to Airborne Particle-Bound Nitrated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Urban and Suburban Areas of South China

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Nov 23;19(23):15536. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192315536.

Authors

Peng Gao¹, Feng Deng¹, Wei-Shan Chen¹, Yi-Jia Zhong¹, Xiao-Lu Cai¹, Wen-Min Ma², Jian Hu³, Shu-Ran Feng⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Architecture and Engineering, Guangzhou Panyu Polytechnic, Guangzhou 511483, China.
² Tianjin Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Environment, School of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China.
³ Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
⁴ School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hongkong 999077, China.

Abstract

Airborne particulates (PM_2.5 and TSP) were collected from outdoor and indoor areas at urban (Haizhu District) and suburban (Huadu District) sites from 2019 to 2020 in Guangzhou. Three nitro-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nitro-PAHs) in the airborne particulates were identified by a gas chromatograph equipped with a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer. In the Haizhu District and Huadu District, the nitro-PAH concentrations in PM_2.5 and TSP did not show a significant decrease from winter to summer. From 2019 to 2020, the difference in the average concentration of nitro-PAHs in PM_2.5 and TSP in Guangzhou was relatively low and had no statistical significance. The diagnostic ratios of 2-nitrofluorene (2-NF)/1-nitropyrene (1-NP) in TSP are less than five, while for 2-NF/1-NP in outdoor PM_2.5 in the summer of 2019 and 2020 are more than five, which indicates that nitro-PAHs in the atmospheric PM_2.5 in Guangzhou during summer mainly originated from the secondary formation of atmospheric photochemical reactions between parent PAHs and oxidants (·OH, NO₃, and O₃). 9-Nitroanthracene (9-NT) made the most significant contribution to the total nitro-PAH concentration. The incremental lifetime cancer risks (ILCRs) of nitro-PAHs in PM_2.5 and TSP by inhalation exposure indicated low potential health risks in the urban-suburban of Guangzhou.

Keywords: PM2.5; TSP; health risk; inhalation exposure; nitro-PAH.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
China
Coal / analysis
Environmental Monitoring
Nitrates
Particulate Matter / analysis
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons* / analysis
Risk Assessment
Seasons

Substances

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
Particulate Matter
Air Pollutants
Nitrates
Coal

Grants and funding

The present study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant No 2018YFC1800306, 2019YFC1805805), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No 91644104), and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (grant No 2018A030313979).