ASSOCIATION OF ANTIMONY WITH TRAFFIC - OCCURRENCE IN AIRBORNE DUST, DEPOSITION AND ACCUMULATION IN STANDARDIZED GRASS CULTURES

Airborne antimony was sampled in two fractions of particles by a dicho tomous sampler (dichot. fine mode and dichot. coarse mode) at two loca tions in Munich with different traffic impact. Parallel to the samplin g of airborne dust, antimony was determined by two standard methods ac cording to VDI-guidelines. Sampling of 'total deposition' (wet and dry ) was achieved according to the Bergerhoff method (VDI, 1972) [VDI. Gu ideline 2119, part 2, measurement of dustfall. Bergerhoff instrument ( standard method). In: VDI. Handbuch der Reinhaltung der Luft, 1972] an d active biomonitoring was performed by exposure of standardized grass cultures (VDI, 1991) (VDI. Guideline 3792, part 3, measurement of the response dose. Measurement of the response dose of ambient lead in pl ants with standardized grass cultures. In: VDI. Handbuch der Reinhaltu ng der Luft, 1991). The highest airborne antimony concentrations of 14 .0 ng/m (median) were found in close vicinity to traffic, with a maxim um enrichment of 11.3 ng/m on particles of the dc-mode [aerodynamic di ameters (d(ae)) 2.5 mu m less than or equal to d(ae) less than or equa l to 10 mu m]. Antimony enrichment near traffic was confirmed by monit oring with standardized grass cultures and total depositions. Results of grass and deposition analysis after nitric acid digestion and subse quent digestion with hydrofluoric acid were compared. They illustrate that the second digestion step produced an increasing effect only on a ntimony concentrations in grass. Further, antimony on df-mode particle s (d(ae) less than or equal to 2.5 mu m) correlated significantly posi tively with antimony deposition near traffic (significance level, alph a = 0.05, r = 0.786). These results suggest that the metal compounds o f traffic-derived antimony in the two matrices might be different. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.