Wintertime haze deterioration in Beijing by industrial pollution deduced from trace metal fingerprints and enhanced health risk by heavy metals.

Airborne particulate matter (PM) was collected in Beijing between 24 February and 12 March 2014 to investigate chemical characteristics and potential industrial sources of aerosols along with health risk of haze events. Results showed secondary inorganic aerosol was the major contributor to PM2.5 during haze days. Utilizing specific elements, including Fe, La, Tl and As, as fingerprinting tracers, four emission sources, namely iron and steel manufacturing, petroleum refining, cement plant, and coal combustion were explicitly identified; their elevated contributions to PM during haze days were also estimated. The average cancer risk from exposure to inhalable PM toxic metals was 1.53 × 10(-4) on haze days, which is one order of magnitude higher than in other developed cities. These findings suggested heavy industries emit large amounts of not only primary PM but also precursor gas pollutants, leading to secondary aerosol formation and harm to human health during haze days.

Tungsten and other heavy metal contamination in aquatic environments receiving wastewater from semiconductor manufacturing.

Through analyses of water and sediments, we investigate tungsten and 14 other heavy metals in a stream receiving treated effluents from a semiconductor manufacturer-clustered science park in Taiwan. Treated effluents account for ∼ 50% of total annual river discharge and <1% of total sediment discharge. Dissolved tungsten concentrations in the effluents abnormally reach 400 µg/L, as compared to the world river average concentration of <0.1 µg/L. Particulate tungsten concentrations are up to 300 µg/g in suspended and deposited sediments, and the corresponding enrichment factors are three orders of magnitude higher than average crust composition. Surprisingly, the estimated amount of tungsten exported to the adjacent ocean is 23.5 t/yr, which can approximate the amount from the Yangtze River should it be unpolluted. This study highlights the urgency of investigating the biological effect of such contamination.