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CHARACTERISTICS OF OBSERVATIONAL DATA OF OZONE AND VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS AT AN URBAN SITE IN ROMANIA
Abstract
Ploiesti is one of the major cities of Romania, which is confronting potential occurrence of high-concentration ground-level ozone events, having in view its industrial activity concentrated mainly on oil refining, oil extraction equipment and machinery, metalworking facilities, chemicals production, etc. Mobile sources (traffic and public transport system) have also a significant contribution to total air pollutants concentrations. This study aimed to analyze the concentrations of ground-level ozone (O3) and aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX)) as a significant fraction of total VOCs in the ambient air of Ploiesti. BTEX are present in fuel combustion emissions, and their presence in ambient air can have an important influence in O3 formation. Hourly O3 and BTEX measurements were collected from January 2016 to September 2016 in Ploiesti in order to establish their time series characteristics, their diurnal cycle and weekly pattern. The results revealed that O3 concentrations were slightly higher on weekends compared to weekdays (the пїЅozone weekend effectпїЅ), unlike the weekly pattern of the BTEX variations. In the study area, the daily cycle of BTEX concentrations showed a diurnal variation that could suggest that they were directly related to the variations of traffic flow. This study analyzed interspecies concentrations ratios in Ploiesti city. The obtained results were in agreement with data published in literature and showed the influence of local industries on benzene and toluene atmospheric emissions.
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