Abstract
Varimax rotation factor analysis was applied to monthly concentrations of elements in total suspended air particulate
(TSP) matter in Ho Chi Minh City collected from December 1992 to November 1996, covering four dry/rainy seasons.
Six pollution source types were revealed. Resuspended soil/road dust accounts for 74% of the TSP mass loading. Motor
vehicles and a source which emits particulates containing arsenic account for 10% and 9%, respectively. There are three
minor sources, namely, cement dust from the nearby construction site, road dust of local tra$c origin and burning
emissions. The contributions from these source were estimated with high uncertainties. The interpretation of sources was
corroborated by studying source pro"les and temporal variations of source contributions. The monthly variations of
source contributions at the receptor were modelled by using source apportionment techniques. From the variation
patterns, emission scenarios for burning, construction and motor vehicle sources were reproduced. Source contributions
also exhibit seasonal variability induced by changes of meteorological conditions. No seasonal change was found for the
As-containing particulates, suggesting a speculation on their origin as coal #y ash emitting from any local coal burning
source. 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Total suspended air particulates; Ho Chi Minh City; Monthly concentration data; Source apportionment;
Annual and seasonal variations
1. Introduction
Multivariate receptor modelling techniques based on
the variability of ambient elemental/chemical concentrations of suspended particulate matter have been successfully developed and applied over the last two decades for
the purpose of characterizing air pollution sources in
urban areas (Hopke et al., 1976; Thurston and Spengler,
1985; Keiding et al., 1986). Most works published so far
*Corresponding author.
1352-2310/99/$ - see front matter 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 2 - 2 3 1 0 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 3 3 7 - 9
3134
2. Experimental
2.1. Sampling
The sampling site is located on the roof of an eightstorey building in a residential area near downtown
HCMC. The siting was intended to collect representative
data for the area with minimum in#uences of road dust
that is abundant in the ground-level air. The industrial
zone of the city is some 10 km north and northeast of the
sampling site. However, there are numerous small factories and handicraft units scattered throughout residential
areas in the city, especially, in the nearby Cho lon China
town.
A Russian-made high volume air sampler with a #ow
rate of &700 m h\ was used for collecting total suspended air particulates on chlorinated vinyl polychloride
Petranow "lter FPP-15. The use of such a high #ow rate
air sampler was necessary for a combined monitoring of
airborne chemical elements and radionuclides as required by the environmental protection authority. We
also have found some advantages of such a combined
monitoring (Binh et al., 1996). Due to logistic constraints,
sampling was only done in day time, from 8 a.m. to
4 p.m., on week days (including Saturday). Elemental
compositions of TSP and airborne radionuclides were
measured every month. This work included 48 monthly
3135
Table 1
Statistical and physical characteristics of ambient concentrations
Na
Mg
Al
Cl
K
Ca
Sc
Ti
V
Cr
Mn
Fe
Co
Cu
Zn
As
Br
Rb
Sb
Cs
Ba
Ce
La
Sm
Eu
Lu
Pb
Th
U
TSP
Standard
deviation
(ng m\)
Geometric mean
(ng m\)
Geometric
Standard
deviation
DWR
EF
(for the mean)
802
640
2760
1204
915
3360
0.58
266
7.6
9.4
37.8
3078
1.23
1.39
203
1.47
9.7
4.1
3.8
0.53
33
3.3
1.48
0.22
0.056
0.017
163
0.56
0.18
77700
317
242
1461
500
425
2838
0.21
106
4.5
3.3
11.6
1054
0.46
1.21
100
0.60
6.0
1.4
5.3
0.46
11
1.0
0.61
0.09
0.027
0.005
113
0.19
0.08
24200
743
567
2424
1108
838
2193
0.55
247
6.6
8.9
36.1
2919
1.15
1.12
181
1.51
8.4
3.9
2.3
0.41
31
3.2
1.36
0.20
0.051
0.016
139
0.47
0.17
74300
1.49
1.75
1.69
1.53
1.52
2.76
1.42
1.46
1.70
1.38
1.36
1.38
1.42
1.85
1.64
1.47
1.70
1.44
2.44
1.99
1.42
1.35
1.53
1.57
1.58
1.42
1.77
1.44
1.52
1.35
1.81
1.65
1.65
1.69
1.71
1.88
1.65
1.51
1.89
1.46
1.5
1.56
1.54
1.64
1.07
1.16
1.23
1.67
3.2
1.6
1.47
1.54
1.81
1.77
1.7
1.43
1.31
1.7
1.51
1.52
1.1
1.1
1.3
356
1.3
3.3
1
2.3
2.1
3.6
1.6
2.3
1.9
1
117
32
153
1.7
698
6.7
2.9
2.1
1.9
1.3
1.8
1.4
505
2.6
3.9
tion is rejected only for Ca, Sb and Zn. For all species, the
geometric means of ambient concentrations are less than
the arithmetic means. The geometric standard deviations
(GSD) of TSP and most of crustal elements are approximately constant, varying from 1.35 to 1.6, almost the
same range as was found by Kao and Fridelander (1995)
for the aerosols in the South Coast Air Basin, USA.
Meanwhile, the GSD for Ca, Cu, and Sb are higher, from
1.8 to 2.8. Bimodal frequency distributions are found for
these species.
The enrichment factors (EF) are given in column 7 of
Table 1. The EF for a given element is de"ned as the
double ratio of the concentration of this element (X) to
that of Sc in TSP and in the earth crust according to
Mason (1966) as following:
(X/Sc)
21. .
EF"
(X/Sc)
+
3136
Fig. 1. Monthly variations of elemental concentrations Fe, Al, Ca (lg m\); Br, Sb, As (ng m\).
3. Source characterization
3.1. Factor analysis
Varimax rotation factor analysis was applied to ambient concentration data to identify SPM sources a!ecting
the sampling site. Twenty four elements mentioned in
Table 1 were used as variables as shown in Tables 2}4.
These include all species having high enrichment factors,
i.e. those of anthropogenic origin. TSP mass was also
used as a variable to allow the determination of source
pro"les and source contributions at the receptor following the procedure proposed by Keiding et al. [4].
Six factors accounting for 86% of the total variance in
the data set and 94% of the common variance were
retained. The varimax rotated factor matrix is shown in
Table 2. The factor standard deviations were calculated
3137
Table 2
Varimax rotation factor loadings (F), standard deviations of the loadings (SD) and communalities (h2). For clarity, factor loadings less
than two SDs are omitted
Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn
TSP
Source
F1
F2
0.47
0.26
0.40
0.35
0.21
0.87
0.14
0.62
0.17
0.20
0.77
0.11
0.56
0.20
0.26
0.37
0.23
0.82
0.84
0.19
0.22
0.26
0.23
0.19
0.42
0.93
0.55
0.91
0.78
0.93
0.58
0.78
0.83
0.68
0.84
0.12
0.93
0.88
0.93
0.55
0.65
0.45
0.90
Soil-1
0.15
0.54
0.20
Burning
F3
0.20
0.24
F4
F5
F6
SD
h2
0.35
0.18
0.61
0.17
0.66
0.69
0.20
0.29
0.22
0.46
0.15
0.15
0.06
0.12
0.08
0.10
0.04
0.07
0.06
0.07
0.10
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.07
0.07
0.09
0.09
0.03
0.05
0.05
0.07
0.11
0.07
0.11
0.03
0.91
0.68
0.84
0.75
0.95
0.89
0.92
0.89
0.78
0.96
0.91
0.83
0.76
0.87
0.87
0.79
0.82
0.97
0.93
0.95
0.89
0.72
0.88
0.69
0.97
0.15
0.18
0.21
0.18
0.17
0.41
0.31
0.16
0.39
0.20
0.11
0.21
0.16
0.26
0.31
0.19
0.17
0.12
0.43
0.20
0.80
0.20
Auto
0.14
0.13
0.19
0.52
0.24
0.11
0.30
0.40
0.09
0.10
0.13
0.36
0.60
0.19
Construc.
0.15
Soil-2
0.14
As-related
3138
Table 3
Elemental pro"les of source types (mg g\). The relative errors in percent are given in brackets
Element
Soil-1
Burning
Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
32(13)
0.008(45)
123(15)
0.048(33)
0.26(40)
1.07(10)
0.03(31)
65(11)
0.035(26)
21(33)
0.2(12)
25(37)
50(11)
0.026(42)
0.064(37)
0.9(20)
15(32)
19.4(11)
1.1(10)
0.008(18)
0.004(25)
0.62(28)
15(32)
4(50)
55(24)
0.043(5)
12(12)
0.019(6)
0.12(9)
45(4)
11(10)
0.022(11)
0.0002(12)
0.36(11)
12.2(9)
0.0089(4)
0.0035(6)
0.0081(5)
2.6(12)
0.0024(17)
0.093(16)
3.4(44)
0.51(13)
Auto
17(31)
0.03(35)
Construction
Soil-2
As-related
111(17)
250(10)
70(36)
0.13(18)
428(15)
150(50)
32(23)
0.022(25)
20(46)
0.019(38)
0.07(46)
0.07(46)
52(23)
0.044(29)
0.33(15)
39(24)
38(15)
0.041(28)
0.4(45)
1.3(18)
17(37)
0.17(39)
32(40)
25(30)
0.5(45)
8.5(36)
0.42(28)
0.008(18)
0.0031(32)
0.0047(39)
9.2(16)
0.18(35)
16(14)
0.005(23)
0.0044(44)
7(22)
0.007(27)
0.008(250)
0.003(41)
0.01(26)
15(13)
0.005(38)
0.005(48)
4(51)
0.008(30)
0.75(12)
APCS. The source contributions were computed by regressing the TSP mass loadings against the APCSs. The
results obtained from the two source apportionment procedures are almost similar, except for minor discrepancies in the numerical values, that appears to be due to the
alteration of the factor loading matrix by the inclusion of
an extra zero-concentration sample in the data set.
3.3. Results of source apportionment
Soil-1 is a predominant source, it accounts for 74% of
the TSP mass. The corresponding regression coe$cients
were obtained with relative standard errors of about 5%.
The remaining 26% of the TSP mass is distributed over
"ve sources. Their contributions were, therefore, estimated with much larger relative errors, i.e. about 20% for
S3 and S6 and even more larger for minor sources S2, S4
and S5.
The contribution of soil-2 to TSP is 27 times as low as
that of soil-1. Such a low impact of soil-2 is understandable, if suppose this source type contains mainly coarse
particles, derived into the air by local tra$c, and most of
them settle quickly, not reaching the sampling site at
25 m above ground. It is such a short residence time of
large dust particles making soil-2 separated from (uncorrelated with) soil-1, although these sources share a
EF(soil-1)
Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn
1
11
*
4
2
240
2
3
*
2
1
2
1
1
1
*
*
1
1
3
1
3
2
*
EF(soil-2)
4
*
*
*
1340
2
*
10
1
*
*
*
3
2
*
*
1
*
3
2
*
10
*
3139
3140
Fig. 2. Modelled monthly variations of source contributions to the TSP mass (lg m\).
Table 5
Summary statistics of source contributions
Source
Source contribution
mean ($ std. err. of
the mean), lg m\
Percent of TSP
mass
DWR
Soil-1
Burning
Auto
Construction
Soil-2
As-related
56.8$3.0
2.4$0.7
7.3$0.7
1.6$0.5
2.0$0.4
6.8$0.7
74
3
9.6
2
2.7
8.8
1.7
2.9
1.8
1.6
0.9
52$5
6$2
11$2
0.4$0.2
3$1
5.0$1
66$5
1.4$0.7
5$2
5$2
2$1
8$1.4
61$7
0.8$0.3
7$1
0.8$0.5
2$1
6$1
48$6
2$0.5
6$1
0
2$1
8$1
Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn
TSP
0.98
0.78
0.76
0.93
0.96
0.97
0.94
0.86
0.66
1
0.98
0.87
0.82
0.91
0.94
0.72
0.77
0.97
0.89
0.96
0.92
0.74
0.81
0.77
0.96
2761
1.47
9.73
3360
3.33
1204
1.23
9.38
1.39
3078
915
1.48
0.017
37.8
802
163
3.8
0.58
2.5
0.56
266
0.18
7.6
203
77700
2762
1.51
10
3270
3.13
1120
1.16
9.1
1.79
3030
960
1.56
0.015
32.5
947
174
6.4
0.66
2.5
0.56
247
0.21
10.5
169
77000
1
1.03
1.03
0.97
0.94
0.93
0.94
0.96
1.28
0.98
1.05
1.05
0.87
0.86
1.18
1.07
1.7
1.13
1
0.99
0.93
1.12
1.38
0.83
0.99
3141
collected on the air "lters. As lead is found highly abundant in the source pro"le of S6, it can be speculated that
As is derived from any small local coal burning lead
smelter. With such a speculation, the relatively high contribution of this source to TSP would be understandable,
even though coal has a low share in fuel consumption in
HCMC.
5. Conclusions
Varimax rotation factor analysis applied to monthly
data on elemental compositions of TSP in HCMC has
revealed six source types. Resuspended soil/road dust is
a primary source which accounts for 74% of the TSP
mass. Motor vehicle emissions is the major anthropogenic sources, which account for nearly 10% of the TSP
mass loading. The modelling of monthly variations of
source contributions at the receptor allowed to reveal
emission scenarios and the e!ects of meteorological conditions for the various source types. However, the predominance of resuspended soil/road dust in TSP has
greatly obscured details of anthropogenic and minor
sources. The source resolution and interpretation will
hopefully be improved based on PM-10 and PM-2.5 data
that are being currently collected and analysed.
Acknowledgements
References
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Sympocium on Harmonization of Health Related Environmental Measurements Using Nuclear and Isotopic Techniques, Hyderabad, India, 4}7 November 1996.
Table 7
Apportionment of elemental concentrations to di!erent sources (%)
Element
Soil-1
Burning
Auto
Construction
Soil-2
As-related
Al
As
Ca
Fe
Br
Pb
V
53
27
54
83
*
*
56
9
7
*
2
6
30
13
*
*
*
*
61
17
13
5
*
12
2
*
*
*
15
*
5
3
*
*
16
14
53
14
7
*
43
*
3142
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