It has long been known that Soderberg aluminum smelters are a large source of anthropogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the environment. The atmospheric fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is of importance to the aluminum industry in Canada due to their environmental persistence and potential health effects. For Soderberg smelters, the fate of facility emissions is of concern due to the involuntary nature of exposure by the general public in the surrounding regions. Excellent relationships between benzo[a]pyrene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons between different types of Soderberg facilities and raw material formulations were found in the occupational environment during this investigation. This was followed by the comparison of emission profiles of a horizontal stud Soderberg aluminum smelter with profiles measured in a network of sampling stations in the adjacent community. The results suggested that benzo[a]pyrene may be less stable than the majority of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. An analysis of different sampling sites across Canada revealed that station profiles in the vicinity of Soderberg facilities were different from those found for sites impacted by steel plants, traffic and domestic heating. To explain some of the observed differences, it was hypothesized that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on particulate matter approach a relatively stable profile that is based on the particle characteristics and source intensities. Particle size distribution measurements in the vicinity of the horizontal stud Soderberg aluminum smelter indicated that the majority of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were associated with particle aerodynamic diameter less than 3 mum. Furthermore, the cascade impactor measurements indicated that there was a sampling artifact of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in-situ during sampling. Relationships for the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from 1997-2002 confirmed that ben
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85110 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Sanderson, Eric Gordon |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002166407, proquestno: AAINR06359, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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