Air Quality and Chemistry of Airborne Particulates : (Determination of inorganic particulates in the atmosphere of industrial, urban, and rural areas in Bahrain and their correlation with meteorological conditions)

Abstract

Abstract : A comparative estimate of dry fall deposition of suspended particulate matter in heavy polluted industrial area (Ma'amir Village), in urban area (Manama City), and in rural area (Al-Hamalah Village) of Kingdom of Bahrain was conducted. Samples of the dry fall aerosol particles were collected weekly during the period of 10th Dec 04 to 16th June 05 using an open one litre beaker trap of deionized water placed on the roof of an 8 m high building above the ground level for the three areas of study. Ion chromatography method was used to analyze the chemical composition of anions and cations in the water soluble matter. Atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) and ICPS techniques were used to analyze heavy metals and MS-GC device was used to analyze organic composition of tarry matter. The data obtained were correlated with meteorological and surface feature of Bahrain. SPSS analysis was used to analyze data and to find the correlations between the measured parameters. The relation between total suspended solid (TSS) and conductivity indicates that the high levels of TSS are associated with high levels of conductivity and the total suspended solid shows relatively high mass, whilst the tarry matter airborne aerosol particulates solids make up on an average 3.6% of the total suspended solid. This indicates that most of the atmospheric particles were soil derived. The mean concentration of TSS and TM are highest in Ma'amir (96.53 mg/L, & 3.289 mg/L) compared to Hamalah (18.904 mg/L & 0.692 mg/L) and Manama (19.283 mg/L & 0.933 mg/L). In addition Ma'amir has the highest content of the measured "trace metals" compared to Hamalah and Manama. The industrial (Ma'amir) and urban area (Manama) contain organic components on airborne inorganic particulate matter much more than the rural area (Hamalah).