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Morphological, geochemical composition and origins of near-surface atmospheric dust in Changsha city of China

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Abstract

Near-surface atmospheric dust in Changsha city of China was analyzed in terms of morphological and geochemical composition. Morphological and chemical composition of the dust particles were analyzed by environmental scanning electron microscopy coupled with an energy-dispersive X-ray analyzer. Results indicated that the atmospheric dusts were mainly composed of spherule, plate, irregularly shaped and agglomerate, which contains variable sizes and amounts of particles. The dust particles could be categorized into five groups based on their chemical characteristic: Al-, Si-, Ca-, C-rich particles and aggregate. These particles and aggregate could be directly related to nearby polluting activities, such as building construction, traffic emission and coal combustion. The X-ray diffraction results show that the main minerals for atmospheric dust are gypsum, quartz and calcite. Mica, halloysite, montmorillonite, hematite, brushite, zeolite, sepiolite, feldspar, alite, dickite, SiS2, Fe6(OH)2CO3, FeSO4, CdSO4, Pb(NO)2O3, Al2SO4(OH)4, As2O3SO3, (NH4)2SO4, NH4Cl, K(NH4)·Ca(SO4)2·H2O are also detected in samples. The identification of heavy metals shows that the concentrations of Cr (403.5 mg kg−1), Cu (126 mg kg−1), Zn (1541.5 mg kg−1), Cd (2.5 mg kg−1) and Pb (348 mg kg−1) in the atmospheric dust are much higher compared to background value of soil. It indicates that the heavy metal (Cr, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb) in the atmospheric dust is mainly due to human activities. The identification of main sources of atmospheric dust collected in typical areas can help to control the polluting sources in urban area.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (50908080), Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (11JJ2032) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and Supported by Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20090161120042), the Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 09YJC790078). The authors would like to express their gratitude to Materials Testing Center Hunan University for providing testing instruments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Zongmin Fu, Yunbo Zhai, Guangming Zeng, Caiting Li, Wenfeng Peng, Yuanming Lan & Pei Lu

  2. Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Zongmin Fu, Yunbo Zhai, Guangming Zeng, Caiting Li, Wenfeng Peng, Yuanming Lan & Pei Lu

  3. School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, 410079, People’s Republic of China

    Lafang Wang

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  1. Zongmin Fu
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  2. Yunbo Zhai
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Correspondence to Yunbo Zhai.

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Fu, Z., Zhai, Y., Wang, L. et al. Morphological, geochemical composition and origins of near-surface atmospheric dust in Changsha city of China. Environ Earth Sci 66, 2207–2216 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1442-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1442-9

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