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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 3640e3644 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Atmospheric Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/atmosenv Short communication Study of aerosol behavior on the basis of morphological characteristics during festival events in India Anubha Agrawal, Vinay K. Upadhyay 1, Kamna Sachdeva* Department of Natural Resources TERI University, New Delhi 110070, India a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Received 4 October 2010 Received in revised form 28 March 2011 Accepted 4 April 2011 Two important festival events were selected to assess their impacts on atmospheric chemistry by understanding settling velocity and emission time of aerosols. Using high volume sampler, aerosols were collected in a sequential manner to understand settling velocity and emission time of aerosols on a particular day. Composition and total suspended particulate load of the aerosols collected during the festivals were used as markers for strengthening the assessment. Terminal settling velocity of the aerosols were calculated using morphological and elemental compositional data, obtained from scanning electron microcopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) study. Aerosol load, black carbon, aromatic carbon and terminal velocity calculations were correlated to obtain conclusion that aerosols collected on the festival day might have been emitted prior to the festival. Settling time of aerosols collected on 17th and 19th October’09 during Diwali were found to be 36.5 (1.5 days) and 12.8 h, respectively. Carbon concentration estimated using EDX was found to be almost double in the sample collected after 2 days of the festival event. This strengthens our inference of time calculation where carbon with high concentration of load must have settled approximately after two days of the event. Settling time of aerosols collected on Holi morning and afternoon was found to be 1.7 and 24.8 h, respectively. Further, because of the small distance of 5.4 km between the meteorological station and sampling site, observed TSP values were compared with theoretical load values, calculated by using visibility values taken from the meteorological data. And it was found that both experimental and calculated values are close to each other about 50% of the times, which proves the assumption that experimental and meteorological data are comparable. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Aerosol Settling velocity Indian festivals Black carbon Scanning electron microscopy 1. Introduction In India some festivals are traditionally celebrated in a fabulous manner, which usually releases huge quantities of air pollutants (Kulshreshtha et al., 2004). Owing to various residence time of different pollutants, adverse impacts on local atmospheric chemistry and human health often lasts for several days and months. One of these impacts is the reduction in visibility (Jayaratne and Verma, 2001). On the basis of morphological characteristics and EDX analysis the composition, shape and size of the particulate pollutants have been determined in the paper and is used to find their settling velocities (Bowsher and Nichols, 1990; Kasahara et al., 1993; Kasparian et al., 1998; Witt et al., 2010). Settling velocity calculations are done to determine the settling time of particulates and * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 11 26122222; fax: þ91 11 26122874. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Sachdeva). 1 Present address: Central Pollution Control Board, Zonal office, Vadodara. 1352-2310/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.04.006 peak load days. With these observations, festive events have been explained as high concentration episodes (Ravindra et al., 2003; Moreno et al., 2007; Steinhauser et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2010). In this study, two important Indian festivals, Diwali and Holi have been studied. Huge amounts of fire crackers and sparklers are burnt on the Diwali day, and in Holi, colored powder made of mixture of inorganic material specifically metal salts, silica and chalk powder is thrown by people at each other and it gets unwittingly dispersed in air. The night preceding Holi festival, another event called as ‘Holika dahan’ is performed all over the city, where huge quantity of biomass is burnt, contributing to the increased aerosol load in the atmosphere. Usually during these festivals, traffic density increases immensely. This puts an additional pressure on the carrying capacity of the local atmosphere. Moreover, Delhi is afflicted with high concentration of aerosols load (Mönkkönen et al., 2004) due to its semi-arid climatic conditions, re-suspension of crustal load, and calm wind regimes during winter time. Through this paper we report that morphology plays a crucial role in settling of aerosols. Based on the shape obtained by the Author's personal copy A. Agrawal et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 3640e3644 scanning electron microscope, shape correction factor the deposition velocity of particles has been calculated. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis is used to ascertain the metals and carbon components present in the samples. Black Carbon (BC) and aromatic organic carbon concentration (AOC) have also been estimated in the samples. The main objectives of this paper is therefore to compare aerosol load of two different festivals of India, and to conduct systematic study using settling velocity concept to investigate the effects of these festivals on local atmospheric chemistry. Table 1 Concentration of Black carbon (BC), Aromatic organic Carbon (AOC) and total suspended particulate matter (TSPM) in different samples collected during festival events. sampling date/time % BC %AOC Conc. in mg/m3 Diwali event 16th October 2009 17th October 2009 18th October 2009 19th October 2009 20th October 2009 21st October 2009 1.89 1.48 1.22 0.89 1.28 1.00 1.11 1.12 0.94 0.62 0.87 0.70 851.99 430.11 577.16 681.71 438.34 447.12 Hoili event 26th 27th 28th 28th 28th 28th 3.14 1.58 2.48 1.18 2.21 1.87 1.64 0.78 2.15 1.30 2.25 1.05 349.77 376.16 372.17 326.57 270.58 103.74 2.04 1.03 1.46 2.61 2.46 1.54 1.91 1.50 328.89 212.27 229.16 410.18 1.29 1.91 0.70 1.05 335.43 224.47 2. Sampling and methodology The regional sampling was done in the south-west part of Delhi, in TERI University (The Energy and Resources Institute), Vasant Kunj using high volume sampler (Envirotech APM 460). This site is situated (latitude 28 320 8900 N and longitude 77 080 5400 E) in an institutional area and behaves as an ideal receptor site, because predominant wind-direction of Delhi is south-west (Attri et al., 2001). The collection of aerosols was started one day before the event and continued for four days after Diwali. During Diwali festival sampling was done on 24 hourly basis using glass fiber filter paper. For Holi, sampling was started three days before and continued for next three days. Day before the Holi and on the Holi day sampling was done on four hourly basis from 8 am till 8 pm, then on 12 hourly basis from 8 pm to next day morning 8 am. This break up of sampling was done to see the episodic effect of ‘Dhulandi’ (Holi with colors) usually played for 4 h with colors during day time (8 ame12 pm) and ‘Holika Dahan’ event where high quantities of biomass is burned. SEM EDX- The surface morphology of aerosols was studied by using scanning electron microscope (Sachdeva and Attri, 2008; Witt et al., 2010). The samples collected on the glass fiber filter were directly mounted on aluminum stubs and coated with a thin layer of gold by sputter coater (SCD020) and seen under microscope (model Leo 435 XP) at 15 kV (to restrict the beam penetration to more than 0.99 mm) with band width of 16 mm equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (IMCAX-sight 759). It was asume that sample collected on the filter paper was uniform and small disc was cut to analyse samples on SEM machine. Disc portion was selected randomly but 4 different areas in the same disc was analysed for metal concentrations. BC and AOC determination- Optical transmissionometer Model OT21 (Magee scientific, USA) was used to determine BC and AOC content of the aerosols deposited on the filter. The instrument contains a dual wavelength light source of 880 nm and 370 nm for the quantitative assessment of BC and AOC, respectively. Deposition velocity calculation was done using Stoke’s law, which determines the terminal velocity of an aerosol particle undergoing gravitational settling in still air. A shape correction factor (c) is also used to rectify the Stoke’s equation for our study (Hind, 1999). 3. Results and discussion 1st 1st 1st 1st Aerosol Samples were collected during two important festivals. Samples were also collected before and after the event day to compare the concentrations of aerosols emitted on the day of the event. In the 24 hourly sampling of Diwali event it was found that concentration one day prior to the event was 851.9 mg/m3 (Table 1). This could correspond to the supplementary effect of high traffic density during the festival times. Usually people move across the city for exchanging gifts, and the ensuing traffic load is very high in February2010 February 2010 February 2010 February 2010 February 2010 February/2010 March March March March 2010 2010 2010 2010 8 ame12 pm 12 pme4 pm 4 pme8 pm 8 pme8 am (next day) 8 ame12 pm 12 pme4 pm 4 pme8 pm 8 pme8am (next day) 2nd March 2010 3rd March 2010 the week prior to the festival (Tandon et al., 2010). We have also calculated the plausible aerosol concentration of that day using meteorological value of visibility taken from the Palam airport meteorological station. The distance between the weather station and the study site is approximately 5.4 km, which is short enough to justify its use for comparing with Diwali data collected at TERI University. Hence, calculations of expected TSP concentration based on weather station visibility data have been compared with measured TSP. The plausible aerosol concentration based on meteorological data is approximately 462 mg/m3, which is lower from the observed experimental values (Table 2). This difference could be attributed to the difference in the sampling cycle. Visibility value is taken every hour at the weather station. Observed experimental values are 24 hourly average values, which represent ambient air quality in a more precise manner than the plausible values of the concentration. Due to high concentrations of aerosols during festival time, visibility is seriously reduced. Sometimes the added load of aerosols can be as high as 390 mg/m3 (851e461) and visibility can be as low as 1.4 km (Table 2). We have also compared theoretically plausible and experimental values of visibility during Holi festival (Table 3). During Holi week, it was observed that the meteorological visibility on 26th, 27th and 28th of February 2010 were 2.8, 3.1 and 2.9 km respectively. And on the day of the festival, it was 3.8 km. The Table 2 Aerosol load and visibility values (theoretical and calculated) in the sequential sampling scheme during Diwali festival event. Date 3.1. Aerosol load and visibility calculations 3641 Concentration Lv Lv Concentration October.2009 Experimental (mg/m3) Theoretical (taken from Meteorological department) (km) Calculated on the basis if aerosol load (km) Calculated from theoretical visibility values (mg/m3) 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 2.6 2.8 2.4 2.4 2.9 3 1.4 2.7 2.0 1.7 2.7 2.6 461.5 428.5 500 500 413.7 400 851.9 430.1 577.1 681.7 438.3 447.1 Author's personal copy 3642 A. Agrawal et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 3640e3644 Table 3 Aerosols load and visibility values (theoretical and calculated) in the sequential sampling scheme during Holi festival event. Date 26th February2010 27th February 2010 28th February 2010 1st March.2010 2nd March2010 3rd March.2010 Concentration Lv Lv CONC Experimental (mg/m3) Theoretical (taken from Meteorological department) (km) Calculated on the basis if aerosol load (km) Calculated from theoretical visibility values (mg/m3) 349.76 376.15 268.26 295.12 330.41 191.64 2.8 3.1 2.9 3.8 3.9 2.9 3.4 3.1 4.4 4.0 3.6 6.2 428.57 387.09 413.79 315.78 307.69 413.79 Table 4 Elemental composition obtained from EDX analysis during two festival events. Diwali Holi Elements Date: 17th October 2009 (day1) (%) Date:19th October 2009 (day2) (%) Elements Morning (same day) (%) Afternoon (same day) (%) Al Si S Cl K Ca Ba C Mg Ti Fe 15.55 8.67 9.30 3.15 23.20 6.35 6.12 25.07 2.25 0.33 0.00 7.66 22.84 2.69 1.60 5.00 11.91 0.00 43.23 0.00 0.00 5.07 C Na Mg Al Si Cl K Ca Fe 73.90 1.93 1.00 2.72 13.15 0.57 1.55 3.68 1.46 38.08 0 0 3.19 56.37 0 1.11 1.230 0 reason behind the increased visibility on the day of the event is the decrease in the traffic density and industrial operations. The visibility calculated by empirical relation for the day of the event from the average pollutant load of the day is equal to 4.06, which is comparable to the meteorological value of the visibility. Thus, Dhulandi being a small episodic event doesn’t distort the visibility of the atmosphere to greater extent. 3.2. Analysis of black carbon and aromatic organics in the Diwali and Holi samples During Diwali event mass ratio of BC and AOC to aerosol load are 1.89e0.89% and 1.12e0.7%, respectively. This BC constituent can be related to high traffic density, which is a common scenario during Diwali time (Tandon et al., 2008). Mass ratios of BC and AOC are highest on the day of Diwali and a day before Diwali event, proving the festival to be a major carbon intensive event. As per the EDX analysis (Table 4), carbon concentration in the sample of Diwali day is only 25.07%. Hence, metals are the dominant constituents of the particulate load (Table 4) during Diwali, therefore it could be inferred that metal pollution is of more concern than the black carbon emissions from the event like Diwali, as also found by Kulshreshtha et al. (2004) and Sarkar et al., 2010. The higher concentrations of metals lead to lower mass ratios of black carbon. The black carbon data has good correlation (R2 ¼ 0.81) with aromatic organic carbon, and its emission is usually associated with the organic carbon emissions, specifically polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, as both of them are the main components of soot (Cabada et al., 2004; Chu et al., 2004; Novakov and Hansen, 2004). Further aromatic organic carbon percentage is highly negatively correlated with total aerosol load. This indicates that the TSP load is largely contributed by sources which do not release aromatic carbon. This also strengthens the given conclusion that metal and other crustal load contributes more to the aerosol load as compared to black carbon and aromatic carbon during Diwali festival day. During Holi event aromatic carbon was found to have high concentration particularly at the time of morning sampling (Table 1). Holi is generally played during morning hours and colors used for playing have high organic carbon contents in it like Malachite green (Velpandian et al., 2007). This contributes to organic carbon content released during Holi. During Holi time black carbon and aromatic carbon have very poor correlation, which indicates that sources of organic carbon and black carbon during Holi time are different whereas in Diwali samples they are the same. 3.3. Scanning electron microscopy and calculation of setting velocity Aerosols collected on the filter were subjected to scanning electron microscope attached with X-ray diffraction facility. Fig. 1. Scanning electron micrographs of Diwali samples: (a) image of aerosol sample collected on Diwali day (17th October, 2009). (b) Image of sample collected after two days of event (19th October, 2009). Author's personal copy A. Agrawal et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 3640e3644 3643 Fig. 2. Scanning electron micrographs of Holi samples: (a) morning (b) afternoon. Scanning images of aerosols collected on both festival days were viewed at 2000 (Figs. 1(a), (b) and 2(a), (b)) and images obtained were used to calculate diameter of the aerosol aggregates. EDX study has given quantitative data on composition of aerosol aggregates in percentage (Table 4). The compositional data was utilized to get average density of the aerosols which was additionally used to calculate terminal settling velocity. This terminal velocity helped us to calculate estimated time of settling. According to the SEM images, the aerosols emitted on Diwali day and two days post Diwali was spherical in shape, with particle diameter 9.5 and 15 mm respectively. The settling velocities and settling time were found to be 5.7 103 m/s and 36.5 h for Diwali day (17th October) and 1.67 102 m/s and 12.8 h for 19th October. Similar type of analysis was performed on aerosols collected during Holi festival, using the images of SEM-EDX analysis. During Holi festival, EDX analysis showed different result for two samples collected on the same day in the interval of 4 h (Table 5). The different compositional results of EDX analysis show that there is great difference in the average density of the aerosols collected at different times of the day, which ultimately affected the settling velocity of the aerosols. Aerosols emitted on the Holi day morning (8 ame12 pm) and afternoon (12 pme4 pm) has average density of 2.22 g/cm3 and 1.915 g/cm3 respectively. In the two samples collected at different intervals large difference is observed in the aerosol diameter. In the morning sample, the diameter is 46 mm. And in the afternoon sample, the diameter is 13 mm. And the settling velocity values vary from 1.24 101 m/s in the morning to 8.5 103 m/s in the afternoon. For the entire above calculations shape correction factor (c) was also incorporated in the terminal settling velocity calculations (Table 5). Further for the calculation of the settling time, we have assumed that particles were well mixed within the range of 1000 m planetary boundary layer (Thuillier and Lappe, 1964). Since mean sea level height of Delhi is 239 m, distance of 761 m is taken as the total height of mixing. With these calculations aerosols Table 5 Result of aerosol particle density, terminal settling velocity and settling time calculations done for festival events. Diwali 1 (17thOctober) Diwali 2 (19thOctober) Holi1 (morning) Holi2 (afternoon) Average density in g/m3 Shape correction factor (c) Terminal settling velocity (Vts in m/s) Settling time (hours) 2.12 2.44 2.22 1.91 Spherical Spherical 1.09 1.09 5.7103 1.65102 1.24101 8.5103 36.5 12.8 1.7 24.8 collected on the Holi day (morning) must have taken 1.7 h to settle down. And aerosols collected in the afternoon must have taken 24.8 h to settle down. 4. Conclusion In this study we have tried to explain that festival events greatly disturb the atmospheric chemistry at the event day. This inference was drawn from SEM EDX analysis. Morphological characterization is used to estimate aerosol diameter and shape correction factor whereas EDX compositional data was used to calculate average density. These three parameters were employed to find out terminal settling velocity and the time of settlement. The analysis has shown that difference in the morphology of the aerosols changes the time of their settlement. Diwali samples were observed to be composed of spherical aerosols, high concentrations (56.95%) of metal, BC (1.89%) and AOC (1.11%). 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