Sources of carbonaceous materials in the airborne particulate matter of Dhaka

Abstract

To explore the sources of carbonaceous material in the airborne particulate matter (PM), comprehensive PM sampling was performed (3 to 14 January 2010) at a traffic hot spot site (HS), Farm Gate, Dhaka using several samplers: AirMetrics MiniVol (for PM10 and PM2.5) and MOUDI (for size fractionated submicron PM). Long-term PM data (April 2000 to March 2006 and April 2000 to March 2010 in two size fractions (PM2.2 and PM2.2-10) obtained from two air quality-monitoring stations, one at Farm Gate (HS) and another at a semi-residential (SR) area (Atomic Energy Centre, Dhaka Campus, (AECD)), respectively were also analyzed. The long-term PM trend shows that fine particulate matter concentrations have decreased over time as a result of government policy interventions even with increasing vehicles on the road. The ratio of PM2.5/PM10 showed that the average PM2.5 mass was about 78% of the PM10 mass. It was also found that about 63% of PM2.5 mass is PM1. The total contribution of BC to PM2.5 is about 16% and showed a decreasing trend over the years. It was observed that PM1 fractions contained the major amount of carbonaceous materials, which mainly originated from high temperature combustion process in the PM2.5. From the IMPROVE TOR protocol carbon fraction analysis, it was observed that emissions from gasoline vehicles contributed to PM1 given the high abundance of EC1 and OC2 and the contribution of diesel to PM1 is minimal as indicated by the low abundance of OC1 and EC2. Source apportionment results also show that vehicular exhaust is the largest contributors to PM in Dhaka. There is also transported PM2.2 from regional sources. With the increasing economic activities and recent GDP growth, the number of vehicles and brick kilns has significantly increased in and around Dhaka. Further action will be required to further reduce PM-related air pollution in Dhaka.