Metals present in particulate material from atmospheric pollution can cause serious problems to the environment because their deposition in the soil and cities may be responsible for reducing agricultural production, damage to forests, degradation of buildings and works of art and mainly being potentially toxic to human health. Given the great atmospheric circulation, metals can be deposited in places quite distant from their source. Therefore, constant monitoring becomes necessary, with multiple samples to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of these pollutants. In this work, a passive sampler was employed to evaluate metal content in seattleable dust in urban, industrial and rural areas at Bauru, located in the middlewest of São Paulo-Brazil. A total of 60 seattleable dust samples were collected between February and December 2016. The Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used to quantify the metal. The elements found in the samples were K, Mg, Al, Cu, Cr, Mn, Zn, Cd, Pb, Ba, As and Fe in concentrations ranging from 0,001 μg/m<sup>2</sup>day to 30 μg/m<sup>2</sup>day. Meteorological data was obtained from Meteorological Center in Bauru (IPMet). As expected it was observed that the precipitation has a direct influence on the deposition of the metals, once wet periods increase their deposition rate. Figure 1 show differences between median metal content in urban, rural and industrial areas in wet and dry season. The main sources of emissions attributed to the metals found in the region are the biomass burning, heavy traffic of vehicles, industries and resuspension of the soil. In addition, an analysis of the air mass trajectories of the period showed that the transport of high concentrations of metals may be associated with convergence regions of what occurred in the region, contributing to the deposition, resuspension and scattering of metals present in the atmosphere. These results indicate the importance of continuous and spatial coverage monitoring for metals in the settleable dust. In this sense, passive samplers can provide simple and low-cost alternatives to monitor potential impacts from metals deposited in broad areas.

Passive sampler to assessment of metal content in settleable dust in urban, industrial and rural areas in Brazil: A spatial and temporal study

254th National Meeting (2017)

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