Evidences of Microplastic in Air and Street Dust: A Case Study of Varanasi City, India

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous in our environment. Its presence in air, water and soil makes it a serious threat to living organisms. The present study aimed to assess the availability of MPs in air and street dust of a metropolitan city Varanasi, India. Suspended dust samples and street dust samples were collected from various sampling sites. The assessment of MPs was conducted by for physical identification binocular microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), while elemental analysis done by Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX). and finally, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used for functional group analysis. the presence of MPs in both suspended dust and street dust samples of all selected sampling sites was confirmed by results. MPs of different color with the shape of Fragments, Films, Spherules and Fibers were observed in the study. However, most of the MPs were less than 1mm in size. The MPs identified in our study were majorly polypropylene, polystyrene, polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polyester, and polyvinyl chloride. EDX analysis showed presence of trace elements like aluminum, cadmium, magnesium, sodium, and silicon apart from carbon and oxygen, which indicates the presence of additives or adsorption capacity of MPs. Confirmation of MPs in the air of a locality of Varanasi explains the need of deep research in this concerned field to protect our future from negative impacts of breathing MPs.

UV/VIS Characterization and FT-IR Analysis of Harmattan Dust across Sub-Sahara Region of Africa

The suspended dust particles that blow across Nigeria as a result of north-east trade wind emanating from the Sahara desert annually are locally referred to as Harmattan. Suspended dust samples were collected across ten different stations in Nigeria; namely: Maiduguri (11º49'N, 13º09'E), Potiskum (11º43'N, 11º02'E), Bauchi (10º17'N, 09º 48'E), Jos (9º55'N, 8º55'E), Lafia (08º49'N, 07º50'E), Abuja (09º09'N, 07º11'E), Minna (9º36'N, 06º35'E), Ilorin (8º36'N, 4º 35'E), Oyo (8º12'N, 3º42'E) and Iwo (7º63'N, 4º19'E) and analyzed using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The quantitative, qualitative and optical characterization analyses were carried out on all the samples collected across all the stations considered, in order to obtain the functional groups and some elements present in the samples. The FT-IR spectra peaks show that the transmittance waveband from 3337.8 cm-1 to 3291.2 cm-1 corresponds to the Hydroxyl group, H-bonded OH stretch in plane and out of plane bonds for all the stations considered. These bonds represent the presence of transition metals and unsaturated bonds found in the samples, which include K, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo, As, Zr, Pb, V, Sr, Cr and Ce. The samples collected across all stations have maximum UV absorbance peaks at around 210 nm waveband and weak visible light absorbance peaks (orange – red spectra) around 620 nm and 700 nm. The study concluded that the transmittance waveband, the waveband absorbance peaks and the elemental composition of the dust samples analyzed vary from station to station. This study will however recommend that further study be made for the purpose of environmental awareness. Keywords: Harmattan, Particles, FT-IR, UV, Dust.

Deposited Dust

A dust storm is meteorologically defined whenever visibility is less than 1,000 meters (Al-Kulaib 1990). Al-Dousari (2009) lists Kuwait as having one of the highest dust precipitation rates in the world. Safar (1980) states that the annual average number of dusty days due to dust storms or rising dust or suspended dust in Kuwait is 255.4. Forty-seven sampling sites representing all the geomorphological and sedimentological provinces in Kuwait were selected for the installation of dust traps to measure the average annual amount of deposited dust during 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 in tons.km-2.

TO THE PROBLEM OF DETERMINING AIR VELOCITY FIELD IN TUNNEL STRUCTURES OF A SUBWAY LINE USING CIRCULAR MODELS AS A METHOD OF TOPOLOGICAL DECOMPOSITION

Underground subway structures represent crowded public areas; therefore, they are subject to high requirements for maintaining the standard microclimate parameters at stations and in tunnels, including the content of suspended dust in the air. To maintain dust concentration within specifications, it is proposed to use air filters installed in station ventilation connections in the stream of air from the piston effect of trains. To study the piston effect by aerogasdynamic computational methods, a method is proposed for the topological decomposition of a subway line - transition froma complete linear model to a closed circular model by isolating several lines and closing them into a circle, which allows reducing the size of discrete model of the design section, while maintaining the influence of neighboring lines and stations as well as calculation accuracy. As a result of a numerical experiment, the parameters of transient air distribution from the piston effect of trains and the structure of air stream at the places of filter installation are determined for further study of their geometric, structural and operational parameters.

The Development of Air Pollution in Mexico City

The present essay documents changes to both objects of inquiry and the meaning of the epistemological concept of air pollution and it explains the processes that produced them. Smog as a result of production processes and the use of the automobile was not a concern for researchers and government managers in Mexico City, who were used to the dust storms resulting from the desiccation of the great Texcoco Lake during much of the 20th century, until the most industrialized nations of the West and the World Health Organization (WHO), alongside other international bodies such as the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), reframed what was understood as air pollution, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Concerns about dust storms were displaced by concerns about factory and automotive emissions that contained new dangers—invisible hazards, just then being estimated, which altered what was understood or considered air pollution and gave rise to the quantification of particulate matter (which was then known as suspended dust particles) and new practices such as atmospheric monitoring. This essay concludes that what is understood as air pollution is situated; its meaning is not finite but simply evolves with time and with the rise of new global risks and concerns.

Analysis of airborne dust effects on terrestrialmicrowave propagation in arid area

Sand and dust storms are environmental phenomena ,during these storms optical visibility might be decreased, consequently, atmospheric attenuation is clearly noticed.Micro-wave (MW) and Milimeter-wave (mm) propagation is severely affected by dust and sand storms in considerable areas around the world. Suspended dust particles may directly cause attenuation and cross polarization to the Electromagnetic waves propagating through the storm. In this paper, a thorough investigation of dust storm characteristics based onmeasured optical visibility and relative humidity is presented. In addition,the dust storms effects of on Micro-wave and Millimeter-wave propagation have been studied based on data measured Received Signal levels (RSL)and dust storm characteristics synchronously. Analyticaldustattenuationmodels predictions are matched to the measured attenuationdata at 14 GHz and 21 GHz. It has been found that the measured attenuation is approximately ten times higher than the predicted attenuation for both frequencies.

Mineralogy and mixing state of north African mineral dust by online single-particle mass spectrometry

The mineralogy and mixing state of dust particles originating from the African continent influences climate and marine ecosystems in the North Atlantic due to its effect on radiation, cloud properties and biogeochemical cycling. However, these processes are difficult to constrain because of large temporal and spatial variability, and the lack of in situ measurements of dust properties at all stages of the dust cycle. This lack of measurements is in part due to the remoteness of potential source areas (PSAs) and transport pathways but also because of the lack of an efficient method to report the mineralogy and mixing state of single particles with a time resolution comparable to atmospheric processes, which may last a few hours or less. Measurements are equally challenging in laboratory simulations where dust particles need to be isolated and characterised in low numbers whilst conditions are dynamically controlled and monitored in real time. This is particularly important in controlled expansion cloud chambers (CECCs) where ice-nucleating properties of suspended dust samples are studied in cold and mixed phase cloud conditions. In this work, the mineralogy and mixing state of the fine fraction (<2.5 µm) in laboratory-suspended dust from PSAs in north Africa were made using novel techniques with online single-particle mass spectrometry (SPMS) and traditional offline scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A regional difference in mineralogy was detected, with material sourced from Morocco containing a high number fraction of illite-like particles in contrast to Sahelian material which contains potassium- and sodium-depleted clay minerals like kaolinite. Single-particle mixing state had a much greater local variation than mineralogy, particularly with respect to organic–biological content. Applying the same methods to ambient measurement of transported dust in the marine boundary layer at Cabo Verde in the remote North Atlantic enabled the number fractions of illite/smectite clay mineral (ISCM), non-ISCM and calcium-containing particles to be reported at a 1 h time resolution over a 20-day period. Internal mixing of silicate particles with nitrate, chlorine and organic–biological material was also measured and compared to that in the suspended soils. The results show SPMS and SEM techniques are complementary and demonstrate that SPMS can provide a meaningful high-resolution measurement of single-particle mineralogy and mixing state in laboratory and ambient conditions. In most cases, the differences in the mineralogical composition between particles within a soil sample were small. Thus, particles were not composed of discrete mineral phases. In ambient measurements, the ISCM and nitrate content was found to change significantly between distinct dust events, indicating a shift in source and transport pathways which may not be captured in offline composition analysis or remote sensing techniques.