Search results for "quality index"
showing 10 items of 184 documents
Airborne bio-aerosols and noise in a dry waste treatment plant in Pietarsaari, Finland
2001
Ewapower Ltd in Pietarsaari, Finland produces pellets from paper and plastic waste for burning. During 1998 and 1999, several measurements were made to determine the dust, particle, microbe and endotoxin concentrations, and also the noise level in the hall where the waste is received and pre-crushed. The noise level exceeded the Finnish recommended level of 85 dBA. The dust and the particle concentrations were low, but the microbe concentrations, especially in the summer and in the autumn, were at a level which may be harmful to health. The total concentration of microbes (both dead and alive) was high - approximately 4.8 million particles m-3. The concentrations of endotoxins was high in …
Current air quality analytics and monitoring: a review.
2014
This review summarizes the different tools and concepts that are commonly applied in air quality monitoring. The monitoring of atmosphere is extremely important as the air quality is an important problem for large communities. Main requirements for analytical devices used for monitoring include a long period of autonomic operation and portability. These instruments, however, are often characterized by poor analytical performance. Monitoring networks are the most common tools used for monitoring, so large-scale monitoring programmes are summarized here. Biomonitoring, as a cheap and convenient alternative to traditional sample collection, is becoming more and more popular, although its main …
Sampling and analysis of pesticides in ambient air.
2008
Developments in the sampling and determination of pesticides in ambient air have been discussed and data on the occurrence of pesticides in atmosphere have been presented. Developments in active sampling methods were reviewed and the different materials used for trapping pesticides from gas and particulate phases were discussed. Likewise, the use and developments of passive air samplers were reviewed. This article pays special attention to the analysis of pesticides trapped from ambient air, and recapitulate the procedures for extraction, clean-up and determination of these substances. Improvements in sampling procedures, analytical methods and monitoring activities are necessary to advance…
Possible markers of traffic-related emissions
2007
Looking for robust indicators of motor vehicle emissions it has been found that brake wear and linings are significant contributors of Cu, Mo and Sb to air particulate matter. These trace elements, whose mutual ratios in airborne particulate matter resulted quite different from those in crustal material, appear to be available fingerprinting tools to identify the contribution of on-road vehicles to traffic-derived particulate matter. In this study, the results of analytical determinations of Cu, Mo and Sb on PM(10), PM(2.5), vegetation and brake dust samples, together with gas (CO, NOx) concentrations, are discussed. Highly significant correlations among Cu, Sb and Mo were observed in parti…
From a multivariate spatio-temporal array to a multipollutant - multisite Air Quality Index
2010
AQIs are computed on air pollution data that are usually collected according to time, space and type of pollutant: in a given town/region, data consisting of hourly levels of K pollutants recorded in S monitoring sites, are usually organized in a three-mode array. A first aggregation step usually concerns time, and allows to pass from hourly data to a daily synthesis: in this paper data will be aggregated by time according to the guidelines provided by the national agencies producing the three mode array X. Here we will propose a new approach to get a Multipollutant-Multisite Air Quality Index time series from a multivariate spatio-temporal array. This implies a two step aggregation, accord…
Case study: inorganic pollutants associated with particulate matter from an area near a petrochemical plant.
2004
The area of Gela (Sicily, Italy) contains one of the largest petroleum refineries in Europe and also has several oil fields both on land and offshore. This paper discusses how the oil refinery and traffic-related air pollution affect the chemical composition of airborne particulate matter over the town of Gela, using pine needles and urban road dust as the means of survey. Forty-one samples of pine needles from Pinus halepensis (Mill.) and two composite samples of roadway dust, each subdivided into six size fractions, were analyzed for major and trace elements. Information on the natural or anthropogenic origin of the observed heavy metals was deduced from factor analysis and element distri…
Survey data regarding perceived air quality in Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa, United States before and du…
2020
The dataset deals with the air quality perceived by citizens before and during the enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions in ten countries around the world: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the United States. An online survey conveniently translated into Chinese, English, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese collected information regarding the perceived quality of air pollution according to a Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed between 11-05-2020 and 31-05-2020 and 9 394 respondents took part. Both the survey and the dataset (stored in a Microsoft Excel Worksheet) are available in a public repository. The collected data offer the peo…
Control of indoor environments in heritage buildings: experimental measurements in an old Italian museum and proposal of a methodology
2005
Abstract This paper describes some results from an experiment carried out regarding a procedure to be adopted for temperature and R.H. monitoring of indoor spaces designed for exhibiting events, such as museums and similar institutions. The monitored data employed in this study has been collected by the Department di Ricerche Energetiche ed Ambientali of the Universita degli Studi di Palermo in co-operation with the Regional Gallery ''Palazzo Abatellis'' of Palermo. The study analyses a simple method for characterising the environmental quality of museums so as to ensure the optimal conservation of works of art. This methodology is based on the procedure (where thermal and hygrometry parame…
Indoor air quality of everyday use spaces dedicated to specific purposes—a review
2017
According to literature data, some of the main factors which significantly affect the quality of the indoor environment in residential households or apartments are human activities such as cooking, smoking, cleaning, and indoor exercising. The paper presents a literature overview related to air quality in everyday use spaces dedicated to specific purposes which are integral parts of residential buildings, such as kitchens, basements, and individual garages. Some aspects of air quality in large-scale car parks, as a specific type of indoor environment, are also discussed. All those areas are characterized by relatively short time use. On the other hand, high and very high concentration level…
The driving factors of new particle formation and growth in the polluted boundary layer
2021
Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Mao Xiao et al. New particle formation (NPF) is a significant source of atmospheric particles, affecting climate and air quality. Understanding the mechanisms involved in urban aerosols is important to develop effective mitigation strategies. However, NPF rates reported in the polluted boundary layer span more than 4 orders of magnitude, and the reasons behind this variability are the subject of intense scientific debate. Multiple atmospheric vapours have been postulated to participate in NPF, including sulfuric acid, ammonia, amines and organics, but their relative roles remain unclear. We investigated NPF in the CLOUD chamber using mixtures of anthropogenic vap…