Caracci E, Iannone A, Carriera F, Notardonato I, Pili S, Murru A, Avino P, Campagna M, Buonanno G, Stabile Luca
Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, FR, Italy.
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2024 Sep 5;14(1):20739. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-70978-3.
Indoor air quality is negatively affected by the emission of different combustion sources releasing airborne particles and related particle-bound toxic compounds (e.g., heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). To date, very few studies focused on the chemical characterization of the airborne particles emitted by indoor sources were carried out; moreover, no data on their size-resolved chemical compositions are available. In the present study, an experimental analysis aimed at determining the size-segregated content of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in airborne particles (including sub-micrometric ones) emitted by widely-used indoor combustion sources (i.e., incenses, candles, mosquito-coils, and cooking activities) was carried out. To this purpose, airborne particles were collected through an electric low-pressure impactor and were post-analyzed by means of chromatography-mass spectrometry and atomic emission spectrometry techniques. Results of the analyses showed that the chemical composition of the emitted particles is not invariant to the particle size, indeed, an important contribution of sub-micrometric particle range to the total mass of chemical compounds emitted by the sources was noticed. These findings also demonstrated that significant underestimations of particle-bound compounds depositing in the lungs could occur if size-dependent compositions are not adopted.
室内空气质量受到不同燃烧源排放的影响，这些燃烧源会释放空气中的颗粒物以及与颗粒物结合的相关有毒化合物（如重金属和多环芳烃）。迄今为止，针对室内源排放的空气中颗粒物的化学特性进行的研究非常少；此外，关于其粒径分辨化学成分的数据也没有。在本研究中，开展了一项实验分析，旨在确定广泛使用的室内燃烧源（即香、蜡烛、蚊香和烹饪活动）排放的空气中颗粒物（包括亚微米级颗粒物）中重金属和多环芳烃的粒径分级含量。为此，通过低压冲击器收集空气中的颗粒物，并采用色谱 - 质谱联用和原子发射光谱技术进行后续分析。分析结果表明，排放颗粒物的化学成分并非与粒径无关，实际上，已注意到亚微米级粒径范围对源排放的化合物总质量有重要贡献。这些发现还表明，如果不采用与粒径相关的成分，可能会严重低估沉积在肺部的与颗粒物结合的化合物。
