Wohlgemuth Lena, McLagan David, Flückiger Benjamin, Vienneau Danielle, Osterwalder Stefan
Environmental Geosciences, University of Basel, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Institute of Geoecology, Technical University of Braunschweig, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany.
Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2020 Apr 14;7(4):234-239. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00110. Epub 2020 Mar 13.
Indoor air pollution can be a major health risk because urban populations spend up to 90% of their time in closed rooms. Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) has not been measured as routinely as other indoor air pollutants due to the high costs and limited mobility of active Hg analyzers. However, household GEM concentrations may exceed Hg air quality guidelines as a result of potential indoor GEM sources like broken Hg thermometers. Here we deploy novel low-cost mercury passive air samplers (MerPAS) in 27 households (7 days) and at 14 outdoor locations (29-31 days) in Basel, Switzerland. Average Hg concentrations ranged from 2.0 to 10.8 ng m indoors and from 1.8 to 2.5 ng m outdoors. These results reveal that households are a net source of Hg to the urban atmosphere and exceed outdoor Hg levels by a factor of 2 on average. We estimated an average weekly intake rate of 0.01 μg of Hg/kg of body weight for adult residents in Basel, which is usually lower than Hg exposure of people with dental amalgam fillings. Our campaign demonstrates that air monitoring programs can easily be complemented by straightforward Hg measurements using MerPAS.
室内空气污染可能是一个重大的健康风险，因为城市人口高达90%的时间都在封闭的房间里度过。由于活性汞分析仪成本高昂且移动性有限，气态单质汞（GEM）尚未像其他室内空气污染物那样进行常规测量。然而，由于诸如破碎的汞温度计等潜在的室内GEM来源，家庭中的GEM浓度可能会超过汞空气质量指南。在此，我们在瑞士巴塞尔的27户家庭（为期7天）和14个室外地点（为期29 - 31天）部署了新型低成本汞被动空气采样器（MerPAS）。室内汞平均浓度范围为2.0至10.8纳克/立方米，室外为1.8至2.5纳克/立方米。这些结果表明，家庭是城市大气中汞的净来源，平均比室外汞水平高出2倍。我们估计巴塞尔成年居民的平均每周汞摄入量为0.01微克/千克体重，这通常低于有银汞合金填充物人群的汞暴露量。我们的活动表明，空气监测项目可以很容易地通过使用MerPAS进行直接汞测量来加以补充。
