Source apportionment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in ambient air of an industrial region in Turkey

Source apportionment is generally applied to a time series of data collected at a single site. However, in a complex airshed containing several different sources, it may be helpful to collect samples from multiple sites to ensure that some of them have low contributions from specific sources, thus the boundaries can be properly defined. Ambient air polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) samples (n = 160) were collected at 40 sites during four seasons (summer, fall, winter, and spring) between July 2009 and April 2010 in the heavily industrialized Aliaga region in Turkey to investigate their spatial, seasonal variations and to identify possible PAH and PCB sources. The newest version of EPA PMF (V5.0) having the capability of handling multiple site data was used for source apportionment. Five PAH sources were identified as biomass and coal combustion, iron–steel production, unburned crude oil and petroleum products, and diesel and gasoline exhaust emissions with contributions of 40, 27, 27, 3, and 3%, respectively. The sources of PCBs were identified as iron–steel production (consisting of steel-making and ship breaking activities), coal and wood combustion, and evaporative emissions from technical PCB mixtures with contributions of 57, 31, and 12%, respectively. •Ambient air samples of PAHs and PCBs were collected at 40 sites during four seasons.•The main PAHs sources were combustion, iron–steel production and petroleum products.•PCBs sources were iron–steel production, combustion, and evaporative emissions.•Iron–steel plants were the most considerable sources for PAH and PCB emissions.•This study is the first one investigating the sources of PAHs and PCBs in Turkey.