Author(s)

Md. Faridul Islam¹, Syada Sanjida Majumder¹, Abdullah Al Mamun^1,2, Md. Badiuzzaman Khan^3,4, Mohammad Arifur Rahman¹, Abdus Salam^1*

¹Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
²Department of Chemistry, University of Louisville, Louisville, USA.
³Department of Environment Sciences Informatics and Statistics, Cà Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy.
⁴Department of Environment Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

Atmospheric particulate matters were collected on quartz fibre filters for 24 hours with a low volume sampler from January 2014 to March 2014 at the Southeast Asian mega city (Dhaka, Bangladesh). Particulate matters samples were analysed for eleven trace metals with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) at Cà Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Trace metals were extracted from filters with digestion method using a mixture of HNO₃ and H₂O₂. The average concentration of the determined trace metals of As, Cd, Ni, Cu, Pb, Cr, Fe, Mn, Zn, Sband Se were 3.06, 6.28, 3.77, 11.98, 305.6, 9.2, 2057.0, 42.2, 303.3, 5.47 and 2.43 ng·m^-3, respectively. Arsenic concentration is much lower in the atmosphere of Dhaka, though Bangladesh has severe arsenic problem in the ground water. Lead and cadmium concentrations showed decreasing trend in Dhaka compared than previous measurements—but still they have very high levels compared than Europe and USA. There is very limited information for Mn, Sb and Se concentrations in Dhaka air. Correlation studies showed that several trace metals had potential joint sources of origin, e.g., manganese is highly correlated with iron (r² = 0.97) and nickel (r² = 0.84), copper (r² = 0.86); lead with arsenic (r² = 0.79) and antimony (r² = 0.78). Enrichment factors analysis was also done with the data base for the respective metals in earth crust and coal fly ash. As and Cu both have combined sources, whereas Cd, Pb and Zn were from coal fly ash.Trace metals concentrations in Dhaka city air were much higher than Europe and USA but comparable or slightly lower than other south Asian countries. This is the first extensive study for the eleven trace metals with ICP-MS in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Atmospheric Aerosol, Particulate Matter, Trace Metals, Arsenic, Lead and Cadmium

Islam, M. , Majumder, S. , Mamun, A. , Khan, M. , Rahman, M. and Salam, A. (2015) Trace Metals Concentrations at the Atmosphere Particulate Matters in the Southeast Asian Mega City (Dhaka, Bangladesh). Open Journal of Air Pollution, 4, 86-98. doi: 10.4236/ojap.2015.42009.