Do the Street Sweeping and Washing Work for Reducing the Near-ground Levels of Fine Particulate Matter and Related Pollutants?

Abstract

This research focuses on the properties of near-ground fine particles (PM2.5), ultrafine particles (UFP), black carbon (BC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in traffic area. The effects of street sweeping and washing on pollutant levels are evaluated. The X Road with sewage ditch was selected for the stationary samplings to determine the differences between the atmospheric PM2.5 mass concentration, their composition, and potential sources before/after street cleaning processes, as well as the effect of the sewage existence. Results show that there were certain reductions of PM2.5 after the street washing, especially for the road section with drainage ditch. The chemical mass balance model then pointed out the traffic contribution on PM2.5 significantly reduced on the downwind site (from 25.7% to 16.5%). Besides, the spatial distribution of the near-ground PM2.5, UFP, BC, and PAHs were monitored by a mobile platform on an appropriate long, straight, and not heavily traffic Road Y. The monitoring took place at 1 h-before, during washing/sweeping, at 1 h-after, at 1 d-after, at 2 d-after three cleaning strategies, including only sweeping, washing-before-sweeping, and sweeping-before-washing. The monitoring then mapped out the hot spot distribution of pollutants. The PM2.5 mass, UFP number, BC, and PAH concentrations before the street sweeping is 155 µg m–3, 1.2 × 104 # cm–3, BC 3633 ng m–3, and 36 ng m–3. The UFP number concentration of suspended particles after street washing had a trend to reduce, avoided the deterioration of air quality. The strategy, “sweeping-before-washing”, was the best operation method among three to suppress the UFP number concentration by 42%, while all three strategies could effectively reduce the PAH levels. The primary pollutants are more easily reduced by the street-cleaning process, while the secondary one did not.