title: Distribution and health risk assessment of mercury in urban street dust from coal energy dominant Huainan City, China.
abstract: High levels of mercury contamination in urban street dust pose a great threat to human health. In this study, representative urban street dust samples in different urban zones were collected from industrial Huainan City, Eastern China. The distribution and human health risk of Hg in urban street dusts were investigated. In comparison with the soil background Hg values of Huainan and China, the average Hg concentration (0.16 ± 0.14 mg kg(-1), n = 50) was significantly elevated, with a variation ranging from 0.02 to 0.56 mg kg(-1). Among the seven different urban zones, the industrial district had the highest levels of Hg, potentially deriving predominantly from the dust emissions of the nearby Pingwei coal-fired power plant. In addition, Hg concentrations in dust samples appear to increase with the decrease of particle size. The result of health risk assessment on Hg in these urban street dusts indicated that there was no significant risk of carcinogenesis for the adults living in Huainan city.
authors.affiliation: School of Resource and Environment Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China, lgzheng@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Liugen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Quan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Jiamin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Chunlu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cheng
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D002947:Cities; D003031:Coal; D004391:Dust / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008628:Mercury; D010316:Particle Size; D011210:Power Plants; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D003031:Coal; D004391:Dust; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D008628:Mercury