Characterization of PM₁₀ source profiles for fugitive dust in Fushun-a city famous for coal

A total of 120 fugitive dust samples were collected to acquire chemical source profiles of PM₁₀ in Fushun including 27 soil dust samples, 32 road dust samples, 19 construction dust samples, 13 coal storage pile samples, 2 cement production samples, 13 coal-fired power plant fly ash samples, 5 fly ash samples from iron smelt plant and 9 samples from industrial raw material and production piles. The samples were classified as 20 subtypes. The dust samples were dried, sieved, resuspended and sampled through a PM₁₀ inlet onto filters, and then chemically analyzed. Inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry, ion chromatograph and thermal/optical reflectance methods were adopted for analyzing twenty elements including Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb and Hg and nine ions including Na⁺, NH₄ ⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, F⁻, Cl⁻, NO₃ ⁻ and SO₄ ²⁻ as well as OC and EC, respectively. The chemical compositions were compared for 20 subtypes. Si and Ca were the most abundant elements in all the fugitive dust profiles. Enrichment factors of elements in fly ashes compared to raw coal were calculated with Fe as reference element. The highest enriched elements were Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb. Significant difference existed among PM₁₀ profiles with the coefficient of divergence values ranging from 0.28 to 0.78. Profiles were compared with others. Si exhibited lower content in this study for soil and road dust while EC and Cr showed much higher content compared to others indicating the influence of coal mining and industries activities in Fushun. This was validated by source signatures analysis which indicated almost all the fugitive dust were relative to coal and may also be influenced by metallurgy. The ratios of Mn/V, V/Ni, Zn/Pb and Zn/Cd were calculated for source identification. Elemental ratios may vary widely even for the same source types with different processing courses. Chemical profiles of fugitive dust should be established based on characteristic sources for a specific region and updated timely.