Identification and quantification of trace metal(loid)s in water-extractable road dust nanoparticles using SP-ICP-MS

Mary-Luyza Avramescu; Katherine Casey; Christine Levesque; Jian Chen; Clare Wiseman; Suzanne Beauchemin

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171720

Identification and quantification of trace metal(loid)s in water-extractable road dust nanoparticles using SP-ICP-MS

Sci Total Environ. 2024 May 10:924:171720. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171720. Epub 2024 Mar 13.

Authors

Mary-Luyza Avramescu¹, Katherine Casey², Christine Levesque², Jian Chen³, Clare Wiseman⁴, Suzanne Beauchemin²

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau, HECS Branch, Health Canada, 251 Sir Frederick Banting Driveway, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada.. Electronic address: mary-luyza.avramescu@hc-sc.gc.ca.
² Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau, HECS Branch, Health Canada, 251 Sir Frederick Banting Driveway, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada.
³ Nanotechnology Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, AB T6G 2M9, Canada.
⁴ School of the Environment, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

PMID: 38490431
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171720

Abstract

Resuspension of road dust is a major source of airborne particulate matter (PM) in urban environments. Inhalation of ultrafine particles (UFP; < 0.1 μm) represents a health concern due to their ability to reach the alveoli and be translocated into the blood stream. It is therefore important to characterize chemical properties of UFPs associated with vehicle emissions. We investigated the capability of Single-Particle ICP-MS (SP-ICP-MS) to quantify key metal(loid)s in nanoparticles (NPs; < 0.1 μm) isolated from road dust collected in Toronto, Canada. Water extraction was performed to separate the <1-μm fraction from two different road dust samples (local road vs. arterial road) and a multi-element SP-ICP-MS analysis was then conducted on the samples' supernatants. Based on the particle number concentrations obtained for both supernatants, the metal(loid)-containing NPs could be grouped in the following categories: high (Cu and Zn, > 1.3 × 10¹¹ particles/L), medium (V, Cr, Ba, Pb, Sb, Ce, La), low (As, Co, Ni, < 4.6 × 10⁹ particles/L). The limit of detection for particle number concentration was below 5.5 × 10⁶ particles/L for most elements, except for Cu, Co, Ni, Cr, and V (between 0.9 and 7.7 × 10⁷ particles/L). The results demonstrate that road dust contains a wide range of readily mobilizable metal(loid)-bearing NPs and that NP numbers may vary as a function of road type. These findings have important implications for human health risk assessments in urban areas. Further research is needed, however, to comprehensively assess the NP content of road dust as influenced by various factors, including traffic volume and speed, fleet composition, and street sweeping frequency. The described method can quickly characterize multiple isotopes per sample in complex matrices, and offers the advantage of rapid sample scanning for the identification of NPs containing potentially toxic transition metal(loid)s at a low detection limit.

Keywords: Metals and metalloids; Nanoparticles; Road dust; SP-ICP-MS; Single-particle analysis.

MeSH terms

Cities
Dust / analysis
Environmental Monitoring / methods
Humans
Metalloids* / analysis
Metals / analysis
Metals, Heavy* / analysis
Particulate Matter / analysis
Risk Assessment
Trace Elements* / analysis
Vehicle Emissions / analysis

Substances

Dust
Metals
Vehicle Emissions
Particulate Matter
Trace Elements
Metals, Heavy
Metalloids