Analysis of atmospheric aerosol (PM_2.5) in Recife city, Brazil

Figures & data

Figure 1.  Map of Recife. UFPE: sampling station of PM_2.5 (8°2.93’ S, 34°56.77’ W, and 15 m amsl). INMET, meteorological station of the National Institute of Meteorology; AER,Weather Station—Airport of Guararapes (REDEMET). (A) Metallurgy, (B) chemical industry, (C) landfill, (D) alcohol plant, (E) sugarcane crop, (F) steel mill, (G) thermoplastic, (H) metallurgy, (I) landfill, (J) port, (K) central commerce area, (L) cement plant, (M) industrial area and port. The detail shows a magnification of the area around the sampling site with the road system and port. (Images from Google Earth: Image © 2013 DigitalGlobe – DATA SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, GEBCO, and for detail, Image © 2013 TerraMetrics, Image © 2013 MapLink, Image © 2013 DigitalGlobe.)

Figure 2.  Daily concentration of PM_2.5 for the sampling period. The continuous and the dashed lines show the WHO guidelines for PM_2.5 (annual concentrations of 10 μg/m³, and daily concentrations not exceeding 25 μg/m³ in more than 1% of the samples).

Figure 3.  Daily concentration of black carbon, for the sampling period. The continuous line shows the mean.

Figure 4.  Rainfall amount distribution during the sampling period [database from INMET meteorological station at Recife, INMET (2007)]: (a) winter; (b) summer. The black column indicates days without precipitation.

Figure 5.  Wind intensity distribution [database from REDEMET meteorological station at Recife (REDEMET, 2012)]: (a) winter; (b) summer. The black column indicates hours with calm winds (speed < 0.5 m/s).

Figure 6  Wind direction frequency [database from REDEMET meteorological station at Recife (REDEMET, 2012)]: (a) winter; (b) summer.

Table 1.  Average concentrations and standard deviation for chemical elements, BC, and total MP_2,5 (309 samples)

	All period (μg/m³)		Winter (μg/m³)		Summer (μg/m³)
Element	Average	Standard deviation	Average	Standard deviation	Average	Standard deviation
Na	0.294	0.089	0.281	0.078	0.307	0.098
Mg	0.114	0.039	0.108	0.044	0.120	0.033
Al	0.063	0.097	0.040	0.029	0.09	0.13
Si	0.127	0.235	0.078	0.058	0.18	0.32
S	0.18	0.11	0.139	0.064	0.23	0.12
Cl	0.09	0.14	0.14	0.18	0.040	0.057
K	0.123	0.097	0.120	0.094	0.126	0.099
Ca	0.052	0.039	0.049	0.043	0.055	0.035
Ti	0.0042	0.0052	0.0031	0.0014	0.0053	0.0071
Cr	0.00212	0.00054	0.00219	0.00059	0.00205	0.00048
Mn	0.0030	0.0025	0.0037	0.0030	0.0023	0.0015
Fe	0.070	0.061	0.077	0.056	0.062	0.064
Ni	0.00376	0.00058	0.00378	0.00062	0.00373	0.00053
Cu	0.0031	0.0027	0.0040	0.0034	0.0022	0.0010
Zn	0.017	0.022	0.024	0.027	0.011	0.013
Br	0.0043	0.0024	0.0041	0.0023	0.0044	0.0025
Er	0.0054	0.0015	0.0050	0.0015	0.0059	0.0014
Pb	0.0095	0.0037	0.0104	0.0044	0.0085	0.0025
BC	1.07	0.47	1.30	0.44	0.84	0.38
Total mass	7.4	3.0	7.8	3.2	6.9	2.8

Table 2.  PMF analysis indicating the percentage of each element in the extracted six factors, with the predominant elements on each factor boldfaced

	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	Factor 5	Factor 6
Element	Metallurgy	Chlorine	Na/S/Ca/Br	Soil	Biomass burning	Vehicles + sea spray
Total mass	3.8%	5.7%	9.1%	9.2%	27.5%	44.7%
BC	12.2%	0.4%	0.0%	4.9%	22.0%	60.5%
Na	4.5%	7.4%	40.4%	0.0%	9.6%	38.1%
Mg	0.0%	3.2%	27.0%	6.1%	8.6%	55.1%
Al	2.9%	0.0%	11.8%	73.5%	5.9%	5.9%
Si	0.8%	4.5%	4.9%	88.1%	1.7%	0.0%
S	11.7%	0.3%	64.5%	10.1%	13.4%	0.0%
Cl	0.0%	86.7%	0.8%	0.9%	2.2%	9.4%
K	8.9%	4.1%	12.3%	14.4%	60.3%	0.0%
Ca	13.9%	15.0%	47.5%	20.1%	1.2%	2.2%
Ti	5.0%	2.0%	18.5%	51.9%	3.0%	19.6%
Cr	14.3%	3.0%	20.8%	5.8%	10.8%	45.4%
Mn	49.1%	0.8%	0.7%	11.2%	11.9%	26.3%
Fe	50.1%	2.8%	11.8%	25.9%	0.0%	9.5%
Ni	6.1%	4.0%	24.0%	2.7%	12.8%	50.4%
Cu	20.7%	19.0%	9.6%	0.7%	21.2%	28.8%
Zn	90.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	9.8%	0.0%
Br	0.0%	0.0%	38.9%	0.0%	29.5%	31.6%
Pb	27.9%	0.6%	12.1%	3.0%	18.0%	38.4%

Table 3.  Main rotated factors loadings, with the six factors explaining 78.5% of the total database variance

	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	Factor 5	Factor 6
Element	Soil	Vehicle	Biomass burning	Chlorine	Sea spray	Nickel
Si	0.976	0.067	0.051	−0.043	0.018	−0.077
Ti	0.967	0.081	0.088	−0.050	0.018	−0.056
Al	0.963	0.053	0.047	−0.107	0.022	−0.080
Fe	0.668	0.652	0.046	0.066	−0.078	−0.110
Ca	0.596	0.049	0.263	0.474	−0.190	−0.031
Zn	−0.043	0.903	−0.044	0.052	−0.116	−0.167
Mn	0.194	0.846	0.000	0.091	−0.126	−0.172
Pb	−0.029	0.803	0.098	0.054	−0.179	0.130
Cr	0.163	0.551	−0.027	0.040	0.212	0.195
BC	0.098	0.491	0.321	0.344	−0.285	−0.062
Br	−0.101	−0.099	0.869	−0.023	0.020	0.066
S	0.404	0.073	0.773	−0.133	0.074	−0.150
K	0.464	0.294	0.624	0.225	−0.207	0.083
Cl	−0.074	−0.056	−0.092	0.917	0.034	0.002
Cu	−0.083	0.284	0.059	0.709	0.041	0.138
Mg	0.078	−0.172	−0.071	−0.059	0.802	0.236
Na	−0.300	−0.118	0.524	0.278	0.584	−0.127
Ni	−0.198	−0.051	−0.002	0.116	0.176	0.889
Total mass	0.391	0.280	0.537	0.490	−0.222	0.085
Percent of variance explained	23.1	18.3	13.3	11.2	7.1	5.6

Table 4.  Absolute factors (fraction of the total mass)

	Absolute factors
	1	2	3	4	6
Element	Soil	Vehicle	Biomass Burning	Chlorine	Nickel
Na			0.029	0.017
Mg	0.0026	—	—	—	0.036
Al	0.080	0.0062	0.0028	—	—
Si	0.19	0.019	0.0074	—	—
S	0.037	0.0094	0.051	—	—
Cl	—	—	—	0.090	0.0014
K	0.038	0.034	0.037	0.015	0.032
Ca	0.020	0.0023	0.0063	0.012	—
Ti	0.0043	0.00050	0.00028	—	—
Cr	0.000080	0.00035	—	0.000010	0.00041
Mn	0.00041	0.0025	—	0.00015	—
Fe	0.035	0.047	0.0017	0.0027	—
Ni	—	—	—	0.000050	0.0020
Cu	—	0.00091	0.00010	0.0013	0.0015
Zn	—	0.024	—	0.00079	—
Br	—	—	0.0013	—	0.00061
Pb	—	0.0035	0.00022	0.00013	0.0019
BC	0.032	0.22	0.076	0.090	—

Table 5.  PCA/CMB and PMF estimative of the contribution of factors/sources for average concentrations, for all samples, winter period samples, and summer period samples

	All	Uncertainty	Winter	Unc.	Summer	Unc.
PCA/CMB factor contribution
1 Soil	9.9%	1.3%	4.3%	0.9%	16.1%	1.7%
3 Biomass burning	40.3%	5.4%	32.2%	4.4%	48.2%	6.2%
4 Chlorine	18.9%	2.5%	28.9%	3.4%	8.0%	1.3%
2 Vehicle	14.6%	1.7%	20.0%	1.9%	9.1%	1.4%
6 Nickel	16.3%	5.7%	14.5%	5.4%	18.7%	6.0%
Percent mass explained	76.9%		75.6%		80.1%
PMF factor contribution
4 Soil	9.2%	1.2%	8.4%	0.6%	11.5%	2.4%
5 Biomass burning	27.5%	1.6%	30.4%	2.7%	18.4%	1.4%
2 Chlorine	5.7%	0.6%	11.1%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%
1 Metallurgy	3.8%	0.3%	6.4%	0.6%	12.2%	1.2%
6 Vehicles + sea spray	44.6%	1.2%	38.8%	1.6%	53.9%	2.1%
3 Na/S/Ca/Br	9.1%	0.3%	5.0%	0.3%	3.9%	0.2%
Percent mass explained	100%		100%		100%

Note: PMF considers 100% of the mass explained with the extracted factors.

INMET. 2007. Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia, Brazil. http://www.inmet.gov.br/portal

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REDEMET. 2012. Rede de Meteorologia do comando da Aeronáutica, Brazil, 2012. http://www.redemet.aer.mil.br

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