title: Properties of agricultural aerosol released during wheat harvest threshing, plowing and sowing.
abstract: This study shows for the first time a chemical and morphological characterization of agricultural aerosols released during three important agricultural operations: threshing, plowing and sowing. The field campaigns were carried out in the eastern part of the Po Valley, Italy, in summer and autumn 2009. The aerosol particles were sampled on quartz fiber filters and polytetrafluoroethylene membranes in order to allow Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometer (SEM-EDS) investigations, respectively. The organic carbon mass concentrations were measured with a Sunset Laboratory Dual-Optical Organic Carbone/Elemental Carbon (OCEC) Aerosol analyzer. The morphological and chemical analyses by SEM-EDS allowed recognizing four main particle classes: organic, silica, calcite and clay minerals. The organic particles contribute to both fine and coarse aerosol fractions up to ca. 50% for all three agricultural activities. This was also confirmed by OCEC analysis for fine fraction. Most of the agricultural aerosols, about 60%, were single particles and the remaining 40% were agglomerations of particles. The ICP-MS results showed that threshing and plowing produce more aerosol particles than sowing, which was characterized by important amounts of clay minerals produced from land soils.
authors.affiliation: ENEA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, Bologna 40129, Italy. Electronic address: chiara.telloli@enea.it.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Telloli
authors.affiliation: ENEA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, Bologna 40129, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malaguti
authors.affiliation: ENEA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, Bologna 40129, Italy.
authors.forename: Mihaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mircea
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Science, Ferrara University, Italy.
authors.forename: Renzo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tassinari
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Science, Ferrara University, Italy.
authors.forename: Carmela
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vaccaro
authors.affiliation: ENEA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, Bologna 40129, Italy.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berico
mesh_terms: D000336:Aerosols / Q000737:chemistry*; D000383:Agriculture; D007558:Italy; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D010316:Particle Size; D014908:Triticum
chemical_list: D000336:Aerosols
keywords: Aerosol; Agriculture; ICP-MS and OCEC analyses; SEM-EDS