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Contamination characteristics of heavy metals in particle size fractions from street dust from an industrial city, Central China

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Abstract

In order to investigate the heavy metal pollution level and distribution characteristics in different particle sizes, and to evaluate the health risk, 42 street dust samples were collected in January 2015 from Huangshi, as an industrial city in Central China. The results analyzed by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) showed that the average content of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Mn, and Fe in the fine particle diameter (< 25 μm) was 1041.12, 361.64, 890.00, 14.43, 3178.52, and 61841.79 mg kg−1, respectively. Meanwhile, the average content of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Mn, and Fe in the coarse particle diameter (25 < D < 75 μm) was 1628.54, 401.52, 593.16, 9.54, 5316.07, and 76765.37 mg kg−1, respectively. Compared with other cities, the heavy metal pollution of street dust in Huangshi was more serious. The results indicated that heavy metals were more easily enriched in fine grains street dust, except for Cu, Mn, and Fe. The heavy metal elements showed obvious spatial heterogeneity in different regions, and the interference from human sources was greater. Heavy metals in Huangshi street dust are generally at moderate or higher pollution levels (except Fe), of which Cu and Cd are the most seriously polluted. Multivariate statistical analysis shows that the heavy metals in fine-grained street dust mainly come from traffic/industrial mixed sources (74.5%) and industrial sources (25.5%); the heavy-grained street dust heavy metals mainly come from mixed traffic/industrial sources (55.1%) and soil source (44.9%). For non-carcinogenic heavy metals, mainly through the hand-mouth contact pathway into the human body, there are also no non-carcinogenic health risks in both hand-mouth ingestion and dermal contact. For carcinogenic heavy metals, Cd in street dust did not have carcinogenic risk.

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Funding

This study is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFC0212602), the Hubei Universities of Outstanding Young Scientific and Technological Innovation Team Plans (No. T201729), the Open Research Fund of Hubei Key Laboratory of Mine Environmental Pollution Control & Remediation, Hubei Polytechnic University (No. 2018104) and the Hubei Provincial Environmental Protection Research Project (No. 2018HB08).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hubei Key Laboratory of Mine Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation, Hubei Polytechnic University, P R, Huangshi, 435003, China

    Ping Zhong, Jia-Quan Zhang, Chang-Lin Zhan & Shan Liu

  2. College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, P R, Wuhan, 430081, China

    Ping Zhong & Xiang-Yi Gong

  3. Hubei Key Laboratory for Efficient Utilization and Agglomeration of Metallurgic Mineral Resources, P R, Wuhan, 430081, China

    Ping Zhong & Xiang-Yi Gong

  4. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, P R, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Da-Mao Xu

  5. School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, P R, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Qian Tian, Tian-Peng Hu, Xin-Li Xing & Shi-Hua Qi

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  1. Ping Zhong
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Correspondence to Jia-Quan Zhang.

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Zhong, P., Zhang, JQ., Xu, DM. et al. Contamination characteristics of heavy metals in particle size fractions from street dust from an industrial city, Central China. Air Qual Atmos Health 13, 871–883 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00846-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00846-2

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