title: Seasonal variations of sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to a northeastern urban city, China.
abstract: Understanding the seasonal variations of sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in air in urban region is important to the effective control of air pollution in the region. Based on a year round dataset (from August 2008 to July 2009), the sources of atmospheric PAHs in Harbin, a typical Chinese northeastern urban city, were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and positive matrix factorization (PMF). The average total (gas plus particulate) PAH concentration varied from 6.3 ng m(-3) to 340 ng m(-3) with a mean of 100+/-94 ng m(-3), with higher concentrations in heating season than those in non-heating season. PCA and PMF identified similar source factors to atmospheric PAHs with obvious seasonal variation. The results obtained by PMF method indicated that the main sources were coal-fired boiler (39%), diesel engine (34%) and coal average (22%) in heating season and traffic emissions (59%), ground evaporation (18%) and coal average (17%) in non-heating season. Excellent correlation coefficients between predicted and measured concentrations of PAHs indicated that PMF was a useful model for source apportionment of PAHs in atmosphere.
authors.affiliation: International Joint Research Center for Persistent Toxic Substances (IJRC-PTS), State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China.
authors.forename: Wan-Li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Yi-Fan
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.forename: De-Zhi
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Li-Yan
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: De-Gao
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D002681:China; D002947:Cities; D003031:Coal; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D011210:Power Plants; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012621:Seasons; D001335:Vehicle Emissions
chemical_list: D003031:Coal; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons; D001335:Vehicle Emissions