Fine Particulate Matter from Ship Emissions in the Port of Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

The impact of ship emissions on air pollution in harbours is probably one of the lesser-understood aspects of anthropogenic pollution. Vessels are often powered by relatively old engines and at the same time quality of fuels is often questionable. These factors have potential to significant increase air pollution in busy harbours. It is well know that V/Ni ratio higher than 2.5 are good indicators of heavy oil combustion from the ship engines. To evaluate this contribution to the air pollution in the harbour of Rijeka we measured concentrations of V and Ni in fine aerosols (PM2.5). Over the 300 fine aerosol samples were collected during the three years period (February 2012 – June 2015) and analyzed by two analytical techniques; X-ray Fluorescence and Laser Integrated Plate Method at the Laboratory for Elemental-Micro Analysis (Department of Physics University of Rijeka). Concentrations of 18 elements (Si to Pb) were obtained as well as the black carbon (BC) component. The results were statistically evaluated by means of the positive matrix factorization. In nearly 15% of samples, concentration ratio (V/Ni) was found to be around 3 indicating that during those days the source that we named “ship emission” was present in fine aerosol pollution with major components such as S, BC and traces K, V, Fe, Cl, Br, Pb and Ni. This anthropogenic source represented approximately 10% from the total fine aerosol mass.