Seasonal and Spatial Occurrence and Distribution of Respirable Particulate-bound Atmospheric Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Hisar City (India) and Their Potential Health-risks

A group of nine PAHs was detected using HPLC in commercial, industrial and residential areas of Hisar city and their health effects were discussed. PAHs have detrimental biological effects, including acute and chronic toxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. An average of total PAHs in commercial, industrial and residential areas was found to be 1798.52, 2196.81 and 2474.13 mg/g, respectively. For seasonal changes, maximum variations were observed in monsoon followed by post-monsoon season, summer, autumn, and least in winter. Among the nine PAHs analysed, benzo(k)fluoranthene exhibited maximum concentration throughout the period of study. Significantly high variation was observed for benzo(b)fluoranthene followed by benzo(k)fluoranthene, pyrene and benzo(e)pyrene. Benzo(ghi)perylene > anthracene > fluoranthene > phenanthrene > naphthalene represented significantly low variations. Large PAHs were predominantly present and they represented large variations of concentration during the study. The presence of other air pollutants can affect the residence time of PAHs in air and the atmospheric chemical lifetimes of particle-bound PAH with respect to thermal reactions tend to be longer than those of gas-phase PAH.