Cite this article: Alam, K., Mukhtar, A., Shahid, I., Blaschke, T., Majid, H., Rahman, S., Khan, R. and Rahman, N. (2014). Source Apportionment and Characterization of Particulate Matter (PM10) in Urban Environment of Lahore.
Aerosol Air Qual. Res.
14: 1851-1861. https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2014.01.0005
HIGHLIGHTS
Atmospheric pollution has become a serious problem in Pakistan.
The averaged PM10 concentrations in Lahore during study period was 406 µg/m3.
The averaged EC concentrations in Lahore during study period was 21 µg/m3.
The averaged OC concentrations in Lahore during study period was 63 µg/m3.
The OC/EC ratio indicates a contribution of biogenic & secondary aerosol formation.
ABSTRACT
The present study describes the characterization of carbonaceous species including elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), total carbon (TC), crustal (Al, Ca, Mg, Fe, S, and Ti) and trace metals (As, Ba, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sn and Zn) in PM10 samples collected from an urban site in Lahore, Pakistan. Sources of various pollutants and their characterization have been carried out using positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. The carbonaceous species (TC, OC, EC) and metals were measured in PM10 samples by NIOSH protocol using Sunset lab instruments and ICP-OES respectively. PM10 concentrations varied from 254 to 555 µg/m3 with an average of 406 ± 87 µg/m3. The elemental carbon (EC) concentration varied from 3 to 56 µg/m3 with an average of 21 ± 15 µg/m3. While the organic carbon (OC) concentrations varied from 21 to 212 µg/m3 with an average of 63 ± 42 µg/m3. The OC/EC ratio varied from 1.5–7.6 with an average of 3.9 ± 1.6, indicating a contribution of both biogenic and secondary aerosol formation. A good correlation was also observed between EC and OC (R2 = 0.81) indicating their common origin. PMF has identified industrial dust (18.2% of PM10), vehicular emission (26.5% of PM10), bio mass fuel (24.3% of PM10) and re-suspended dust (4.6% of PM10) as major sources of PM10 in urban environment of Lahore.
Aerosol and Air Quality Research (AAQR) is an independently-run non-profit journal that promotes submissions of high-quality research and strives to be one of the leading aerosol and air quality open-access journals in the world. We use cookies on this website to personalize content to improve your user experience and analyze our traffic. By using this site you agree to its use of cookies.
