Age-specific lobar and regional deposition of size-segregated particulate in a glass city of India and their health impact

Abstract

In the glass industrial city Firozabad, real-time monitoring (mass as well as number) of size-segregated particulate matter (PM) was done by a GRIMM portable aerosol spectrometer at two different sites to know about the deposition of size-segregated PM in the human respiratory tract. The average mass concentrations of PMs were recorded as PM₁₀ (184.68 μg/m⁻³), PM_2.5 (54.48 μg/m⁻³), and PM_1.0 (31.02 μg/m⁻³). PM number concentrations were found as PM₁₀ (18.64 μg/m⁻³), PM_2.5 (496.22 μg/m⁻³), and PM_1.0 (1105.87 μg/m⁻³). The concentrations of PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. It was observed that PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 were the highest deposited in the head region (99.58–84.66%, 92.02–32.70%, 99.56–85.05%, and 97.20–69.25%) followed by the tracheobronchial (TB) region respectively in urban and rural. It was revealed that children with 3 and 9 years age group have the highest deposition and highly affected by lung diseases in both sampling sites. The children in the urban site have highly deposited PM mass visualization as compared to the rural site. Hazard quotient (HQ) results showed that a sensitive exposed population (children) may be at non-carcinogenic risk from acute exposure to PM₁₀ in urban (3.83) as well as in rural site (2.971) because the safer limit (HQ > 1) the prescribed by USEPA is exceeded, while the excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) assessment of PM_2.5 for both adult (68.7 × 10⁻², 45.8 × 10⁻²) and child (195.4 × 10⁻¹, 130.2 × 10⁻¹) exceeded the safer limit (≥ 10⁻⁶) in both sites which inferred greater carcinogenic risk for adults and children.