Enrichment and transfer of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) through dust aerosol generation from soil to the air

Highlights

● Compositional patterns of PAHs in dust aerosol vary from soil during dust generation.

● The EF of PAH in dust aerosol is affected by soil texture and soil PAH concentration.

● The sizes of dust aerosol play an important role in the enrichment of HMW-PAHs.

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are major organic pollutants in soil. It is known that they are released to the atmosphere by wind via dust aerosol generation. However, it remains unclear how these pollutants are transferred through the air/soil interface. In this study, dust aerosols were generated in the laboratory using soils (sandy loam and loam) with various physicochemical properties. The PAH concentrations of these soils and their generated dust aerosol were measured, showing that the enrichment factors (EFs) of PAHs were affected by soil texture, PAH contamination level, molecular weight of PAH species and aerosol sizes. The PAHs with higher EFs (6.24–123.35 in dust PM_2.5; 7.02–47.65 in dust PM₁₀) usually had high molecular weights with more than four aromatic rings. In addition, the positive correlation between EFs of PAHs and the total OC_aerosol content of dust aerosol in different particle sizes was also statistically significant (r = 0.440, P < 0.05). This work provides insights into the relationship between atmospheric PAHs and the contaminated soils and the transfer process of PAHs through the soil-air interface.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Dust aerosols / Enrichment factors (EFs) / Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42077193, 21906024, and 92044301), and the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (China) (No. 19ZR1404000). In addition, this study received technical support for the determination of soil properties from Professor Yang Yi’s research group at East China Normal University, China.

Electronic Supplementary material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-023-1610-7 and is accessible for authorized users. Data is available at doi: 10.17632/52d5h4z89x.3 and is accessible for authorized users.

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