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Atmospheric dry/wet deposition of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/dibenzofurans in a rural area of Southern Taiwan

The characteristics of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and the variation of the gas-particle partitioning of PCDD/Fs near two municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWIs) located in southern Taiwan were investigated. In order to better understand the mechanism of dry deposition, the atmospheric dry deposition flux and velocity of PCDD/Fs were calculated. It was found that the mean atmospheric PCDD/F concentrations (0.0348-0.106 pg I-TEQ/Nm3) were comparable to those detected in the vicinity of MSWIs in Taiwan, but significantly lower than those in a highly industrialized urban area (0.150 pg I-TEQ/Nm3) located in southern Taiwan. The relatively higher atmospheric PCDD/F concentrations was found in winter than in summer. The calculated total dry deposition flux of PCDD/Fs ranged from 0.0274-0.718 ng I-TEQ/m2-month, and the atmospheric deposition flux in winter tended to be higher than those in summer. The results also indicated that dry deposition velocities of atmospheric particles for each month ranged from 0.52-0.91 cm/s (mean = 0.63 cm/s) and 0.48-0.73 cm/s (mean = 0.55 cm/s) in sites A and B, respectively, which were similar to that for the ambient air near two MSWIs in Taiwan, but slightly higher than those in urban area of Korea. In addition, the dry deposition of PCDD/Fs was mainly contributed by particle-phase at both sampling areas during the estimated period. The above results demonstrated that the dominant mechanism of dry deposition was particle phase deposition.
The annual variations of wet deposition of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in atmosphere were also measured at two sites (A and B). Results showed that particle scavenging dominates in the wet deposition processes for the removal of PCDD/Fs from the atmosphere, the highest value was observed at the highest chlorinated congener. The ambient temperature and the amount of precipitation played an important role in the variation of PCDD/F deposition fluxes. It was found that temperature was inversely associated with the existence of particulate PCDD/Fs, indicating PCDD/Fs are scavenged most efficiently in cold weather. PCDD/F wet deposition fluxes in rainy seasons (from June to August) were significantly higher than those in dry seasons (from December to February), revealing a positive relationship between wet deposition flux and monthly rainfall. Additionally, the annual total (dry + wet) deposition fluxes of PCDD/Fs were 149 ng/m2-year (5.02 ng I-TEQ/m2-year) and 177 ng/m2-year (5.11 ng I-TEQ/m2-year) for sites A and B, respectively, revealing that dry deposition was more dominant than the wet deposition for the atmospheric deposition of PCDD/Fs. Since atmospheric deposition is believed to be the main transfer pathway of PCDD/Fs into food chains, its impact on human exposure to PCDD/Fs is of great importance.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0118112-173235
Date18 January 2012
CreatorsHuang, Chun-Jen
ContributorsLin-Chi Wang, Kang-Shin Chen, Wen-Jhy Lee, Shui-Jen Chen, Gou-Ping Chang-Chien
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0118112-173235
Rightsuser_define, Copyright information available at source archive

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