Influence of vehicular emissions on the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in urban and industrial areas of La Plata, Argentina

MELLADO, DANIELA; GIULIANI, DANIELA; DEMETRIO, PABLO MARTIN; SANCHEZ, ERICA YANINA; PORTA, ANDRÉS; COLMAN LERNER, JORGE ESTEBAN

ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT

SPRINGER

Año: 2022 vol. 194

0167-6369

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are considered potentially toxic, even carcinogenic, because of their affection to public health and the environment. It is necessary to know their ambient levels and the origin of these pollutants in order to mitigate them. A concerning scenario is the one in which commercial/administrative, industrial and residential activities coexist. In this context, Gran La Plata (Argentina) presents such characteristics, in addition to the presence of one of the most important petrochemical complexes in the country and intense vehicular traffic. The source apportionment of PAHs emission in the region, associated to 10 and 2.5 µm particulate matter fractions, was studied. First, different missing value imputation methods were evaluated for PAHs databases. GSimp presented a better performance, with mean concentrations of ∑PAHs of 65.8 ± 40.2 ng m-3 in PM10, and 39.5 ± 18.0 ng m-3 in PM2.5. For both fractions it was found that the highest contribution was associated with low molecular weight PAHs (3 rings), with higher concentrations of Anthracene. Emission sources were identified by using principal component analysis (PCA) together with multiple linear regression (MLR) and diagnostic ratios of PAHs. The results showed that the main emission source is associated with vehicular traffic in both fractions. Classification by discriminant analysis showed that emissions can be identified by region and that Fluoranthene, Benzo(a)anthracene, and Anthracene in PM10, and Anthracene and Phenanthrene in PM2.5 are characteristic of emissions from the petrochemical complex.