RT Journal Article
T1 Application of a near real-time technique for the assessment of atmospheric arsenic and metals emissions from a copper smelter in an urban area of SW Europe
A1 Pérez Vizcaino, Pablo
A1 Sánchez de la Campa Verdona, Ana María
A1 Sánchez-Rodas Navarro, Daniel Alejandro
A1 Rosa Díaz, Jesús de la
AB Emissions of metals and metalloids as a result of industrial processes, entail a great risk to human health. A high time resolution study on arsenic levels in PM10 in the city of Huelva (SW Spain) was carried out between September 2021 and September 2022. Hourly data obtained with a near real-time technique based on X-ray fluorescence were inter-compared with other offline analytical instrumentation. The results showed that the main origin of As and other metal(loid)s such as Zn and Pb, was the copper smelter located southwest to the city. Although the mean concentration of As during the study period (2.8 ng m-3) was lower than the target value (6 ng m-3) proposed by the European Directive 2004/107/EC, hourly peaks of up to 311 ng m-3 were measured. The highest concentrations of arsenic were reached in the early afternoon, related to the influence of breeze. A source apportionment study has identified five major sources of PM10: mineral, marine, combustion, regional and industry. The industrial source is characterized by high concentrations of As, Cu, Pb and Zn, contributing 1% of the total concentration of PM10 and related to copper smelter emissions. In addition, the analysis of two extreme North African dust outbreak events that affected southwestern Europe in March 2022, showed that this natural source contributed slightly to arsenic levels. The need to carry out high time resolution studies is demonstrated to better understand the variability in exposure to industrial metal(loid)s by the population, compared to conventional 24-h studies.
PB Elsevier
SN 0269-7491
SN 1873-6424 (electrónico)
YR 2024
FD 2024-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24949
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24949
LA eng
NO Pérez-Vizcaíno, P., Sánchez de la Campa, A. M., Sánchez-Rodas, D., & de la Rosa, J. D. (2025). Application of a near real-time technique for the assessment of atmospheric arsenic and metals emissions from a copper smelter in an urban area of SW Europe. In Environmental Pollution (Vol. 367, p. 125602). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2024.125602
NO This project has received funding from the European Union′s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No101036245. We would like to acknowledge the project of the Ministry ofScience, Innovation, and Universities of Spain (Project RTI 2018-095937-B-I00 and PID2021-126986OB-I00) and the EnvironmentalAgency of Andalusia for financial and technical support. Funding foropen access charge: Universidad de Huelva/CBUA.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026