Elemental and magnetic analyses, source identification, and oxidative potential of airborne, passive, and street dust particles in Asaluyeh County, Iran

One of the most important environmental issues in arid and semi-arid regions is deposition of dust particles. In this study, airborne, passive, and street dust samples were collected in Asaluyeh County, in August 2017, September 2017, and February 2018. The PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations for the sampling period ranged between 19.7 and 76.0 μg/m3 and 47.16–348 μg/m3 with an average of 46.4 μg/m3 and 143 μg/m3, respectively. Monthly dust deposition rates ranged from 5.2 to 26.1 g/m2 with an average of 17.85 g/m2. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) applied to the dust compositional data indicated that Sb, Zn, Pb, Mo, Cu, and As come from anthropogenic sources while Al, Fe, Ti, Mn, Ni, Cr, and Co originate mostly from geogenic sources. The PMF results indicated that the geogenic material was the major source of passive and airborne dust samples. Elemental compositions were similar for passive dust and local surface soil. Frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility (χIf and χfd%) showed that the local soil is entisol. Isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM-100mT/IRM1T) versus saturation IRM (SIRM) demonstrated that the background sample contains ferrimagnetic minerals, but with increasing SIRM, the concentration of soft magnetic magnetite-like phases increases and the magnetic particles are larger. Mrs./Ms. versus Bcr/Bc indicated that the magnetic particles sizes were probably between 120 and 1000 nm. Eu values and the mean Eu/Eu* and La/Al values clearly show that the airborne dust is most affected by oil industries, while passive dust samples primarily originated from local surface soils. These assumptions were confirmed by Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model results. The samples display a moderate level of oxidation towards ascorbic acid (OPAA) and glutathione (OPGSH). Regarding the passive and airborne dust samples, backward Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) modeling results display a significant positive relationship between geogenic material and oxidative potential (OP). It includes many redox-active transition metals. Alternatively, the street dust OP is strongly related to geogenic and industrial sources and OPAA is marginally related to urban sources. It was shown that measured magnetic parameters can be used for OP estimation. [Display omitted] •PMF modeling indicated that Sb, Zn, Pb, Mo, Cu, and As mainly come from anthropogenic sources.•Magnetic parameters can be used for finding PTEs concentration and sourc