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Assessment of the sequential principal component analysis chemometric tool to identify the soluble atmospheric pollutants in rainwater

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry volume 399, pages 2031–2041 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

In this study a new method of principal component (PC) analysis, sequential PC analysis (SPCA), is proposed and assessed on real samples. The aim was to identify the atmospheric emission sources of soluble compounds in rainwater samples, and the sample collection was performed with an automatic sampler. Anions and cations were separated and quantified by ion chromatography, whereas trace metals and metalloids were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. SPCA results showed eight interfering PCs and ten significant PCs. The interfering cases originated from different atmospheric sources, such as resuspended crustal particles, marine aerosols, urban traffic and a fertilizer factory. The significant PCs explained 84.6% of the total variance; 28.1% accounted for the main contribution, which was resuspended industrial soil from a fertilizer factory containing NO -2 , NH +4 , NO -3 , SO 2-4 , F-, Al, K+, Mn, Sb and Ca2+ as indicators of the fertilizer factory. Another important source (15.0%) was found for Na+, Mg2+, K+, Cl- and SO 2-4 , which represents the marine influence from south and southwest directions. Emissions of Ba2+, Pb, Sr2+, Sb and Mo, which represent a traffic source deposited in soils, were identified as another abundant contribution (12.1%) to the rainwater composition. Other important contributions to the rainwater samples that were identified through SPCA included the following: different urban emissions (Cu, As, Cd, Zn, Mo and Co, 18.1%), emissions from vegetation (HCOO-, 7.7%) and emissions from industrial combustion processes (Ni, V 15.6%). The application of SPCA proved to be a useful tool to identify the complete information on rainwater samples as indicators of urban air pollution in a city influenced mainly by vehicle traffic emissions and resuspended polluted soils.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Junta de Andalucía for its financial assistance in carrying out this research project (P05, RNM, 1177) and for the generous grant provided to the first author.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Seville, C. Profesor García González 1, Campus of Reina Mercedes, 41012, Seville, Spain

    Rocío Montoya-Mayor, Antonio José Fernández-Espinosa & Miguel Ternero-Rodríguez

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  1. Rocío Montoya-Mayor
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  2. Antonio José Fernández-Espinosa
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  3. Miguel Ternero-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Antonio José Fernández-Espinosa.

Additional information

Published in the special issue Chemometrics (VII Colloquium Chemiometricum Mediterraneum) with guest editors Marcelo Blanco, Juan M. Bosque-Sendra and Luis Cuadros-Rodríguez

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Montoya-Mayor, R., Fernández-Espinosa, A.J. & Ternero-Rodríguez, M. Assessment of the sequential principal component analysis chemometric tool to identify the soluble atmospheric pollutants in rainwater. Anal Bioanal Chem 399, 2031–2041 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4371-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-010-4371-7

Keywords

  • Rainwater
  • Principal component analysis
  • Trace metals
  • Bioavailability
  • Sources identification
  • Traffic pollution