Pollution characteristics and health risk assessment of PM2.5 bound PAHs during heating season in industrial urban area of Jinan City, China

Abstract

Abstract This study was aimed to analyze temporal trends, pollution sources and carcinogenic health risks of atmospheric PM2.5-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the northeastern industrial urban area of Jinan city in the heating season. A total of 245 PM2.5 samples were collected during the heating season from Nov. 2014 to Mar. 2021. The average daily concentrations of Σ16PAHs ranged from 0.25 ng∙m− 3 to 733.69 ng∙m− 3, with an overall trend of increasing firstly and then decreasing gradually. Human health risk assessments of respiratory exposure to PAHs in PM2.5 were conducted by using probabilistic method from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). The main sources of PAHs are diesel, gasoline, coal, vehicles and industrial furnaces. The 95th percentile of lifetime carcinogenic risks of Σ16PAHs ranged from 0.43×10− 6 to 2.84×10− 6. The differences between cancer risks of PAHs in different heating seasons were of statistically significant (P < 0.001). Higher cancer risks of PAHs exposure were presented from winter 2015 to spring 2016. After 2017, the cancer risks of PAHs to population were below the acceptable level of 1× 10− 6.