Speaker
Description
The present work aims to investigate the presence and related concentration of different pollutants and their species in a wide range of ambient air particulates collected from different regions in the Middle East. Ambient air particulates were collected from different cities in the Middle East including; Cairo-Egypt, Amman-Jordan, Taif, and Jeddah-Saudi Arabia. The collected particulates are Total Suspended Particulates (TSP, > 100 µm), air particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter equal or less than 10 µm (PM10, 10 µm), air particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter equal or less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5, 2.5 µm), and fractionated air particulates ranging from 16 µm to 0.06 µm. For this purpose, laboratory-based X-ray fluorescence and advanced X-ray synchrotron radiation techniques were involved. These techniques include multi-secondary target Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF), Synchrotron Radiation micro X-ray fluorescence (SR-µXRF), and complementary X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The annual mass concentrations of the collected ambient air particulates exceed the recommended annual mass concentrations of the European Commission (EC) air quality standards (25 µg/m3) and the World Health Organization (WHO) standards (10 µg/m3). The elemental analysis and elemental mapping were presented. Using the linear combination fitting for the XANES data, the elemental speciation of the most toxic elements (Cr, Mn, Cu, As, Ni, and Pb) was demonstrated. The statistical analysis, including enrichment factors, Pearson’s correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and positive matrix factorization, reveals more information about the source identification of the collected ambient air particulates.
