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BIOMONITORING OF AIR POLLUTION BY MOSS-BAGS IN CLUJ-NAPOCA CITY, ROMANIA

Levente Levei, Anamaria Iulia Török, Oana Cadar, Erika Andrea Levei, Alexandru Ozunu

Abstract

Assuring good air quality is a challenge for every big city all over the world, since air pollution poses important health risk to humans and increases with the industrialization and urbanization degree. Cluj-Napoca is a Romanian city with high population density and intense traffic, but also with moderate to high air pollution. The air pollution with metals (Cu, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn) in Cluj-Napoca city was investigated using moss bags. Polyethylene bags of 50 cm2, containing 8 g dried moss (Sphagnum, L.) collected from an unpolluted area, were exposed during 240 days in different sites of the city. After exposure, the metal content was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after microwave assisted digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The obtained results show higher metal contents in moss after exposure, the average metal contents decreasing in the order Zn>Cu>Pb>Cr>Ni>Co>Cd. The metal enrichment factor, calculated as the ratio of metal content before and after exposure, ranged between 1.4-20.0 for Cu, 1.0-1.6 for Pb, 1.2-3.0 for Zn, 1.1-1.7 for Cd, 1.1-2.2 for Cr, 1.4-2.4 for Ni and 1.0-1.8 for Co, indicating that for each studied metal, the pollution level varies from site to site. The pollution load index (PLI) calculated as the 7th root of the multiplied metal enrichment factors, was higher than 1, indicating the air pollution in all studied sites. The highest PLI (2.5) was obtained for the site situated at the entrance in the city, characterized by an intense traffic.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2020/4.1/s19.039

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