Abstract
Eight samples of road dust were collected from three different localities (industrial, urban, peripheral) of the town of
Gela (Italy) to characterize their chemical composition and to assess (a) the influence of the petrochemical plant and the
urban traffic on the trace element content in different grain-size fractions of street dust and (b) the solid-phase speciation of
the analysed metal using sequential extraction. The samples were sieved into six particle size ranges: 500–250, 250–125,
125–63, 63–40, 40–20 ando20 mm and then analysed for 15 trace elements by ICP-MS. Sequential extraction of metals was
performed on each subsample. A principal component analysis was also carried out to define the possible origin of metals
in dusts. A comparison was made between the trace metal concentrations in road dust and those in main local outcropping
rocks. The obtained results, indicate, that the road dust samples contain non-soil-derived elements, whose primary
contributors appear to be vehicular traffic and the nearby petrochemical plant. Traffic appears to be responsible for the
high levels of Ba, Cu, Cr, Mo, Pb, Sb and Zn. High concentrations of Ni, V and, partly, Ba and Cr were associated with
emissions from the petrochemical plant. With respect to the local background, Sb was the most highly enriched trace
element in the road dusts. Results of sequential extraction analysis show that most metals are mainly distributed in the
non-residual fractions and particularly in the organic/sulphide and Fe–Mn oxides fractions. They also point to superficial
adsorption as an important transfer mechanism of trace metals from their sources to the environment.
Lingua originale | English |
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pagine (da-a) | 5929-5941 |
Numero di pagine | 13 |
Rivista | Atmospheric Environment |
Volume | 40 |
Stato di pubblicazione | Published - 2006 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- ???subjectarea.asjc.2300???
- ???subjectarea.asjc.1900.1902???