Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Need for assessment of health risks in India? Study of an urban-industrial location in India

This paper reports the PAHs levels in the atmosphere of an urbanised indust rial site of India. A high-resolution capillary gas chromatograph with a ma ss spectrometric detector (HRCGC-MS) and a high performance liquid chromato graph (HPLC) equipped with a fluorescence detector were used for the identi fication and quantitation of PAHs. The atmospheric levels of PAHs were high er (4.66 ng/m(3) yearly average) than most of the concentrations previously reported in the literature. Indian sites were found more contaminated with potently carcinogenic: four and above ringed PAHs. Based on a good correla tion between the levels of lead, vanadium, BaP and BghiP, the vehicular emi ssion appears to be a major source of the PAHs. Further, the higher levels of observed PAHs could be attributed to the vertical distribution of the ae rosols, the preference of the PAHs for the particulate phase and the greate r availability of the substrate in the atmosphere for their sorption. This paper also discusses the need for development of a PAHs monitoring protocol and related health effect studies in developing countries such as India.