ABSTRACT
Long-term atmospheric measurement of 17 total (gaseous and particulate) polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) has been made from 2007 to 2016â¯at five industrial and urban sites in Busan, South Korea, based on their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. In the present study, two pooled datasets covering a combination of 2 industry sites and 3 urban sites have been subjected to positive matrix factorization (PMF) to identify and quantify the major sources of PCDD/Fs. Additionally, PMF has been applied to the industrial urban dataset consisting of both polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and PCDD/Fs. The results show that the sum of PCDD/F mass (Σ17PCDD/Fs) at the industrial sites is determined by five major sources: non-ferrous metal production (33.7%), diesel vehicle emissions (30.2%), ferrous metal production (22.4%), other industrial emissions (11.1%), and traffic emissions (2.6%), while the PAH mass (Σ16PAHs) is predominantly associated with emissions from coal combustion, followed by traffic emissions. At the urban sites, the largest contribution to the Σ17PCDD/Fs was observed from transported emissions being emitted from metallurgical industry (75.5%), followed by diesel vehicle emissions (24.5%). The application of congener-specific toxicity to PCDD/F mass (Σ17fg I-TEQ Sm-3) indicates enhanced contributions from the ferrous metallurgical emission factor associated with penta- and hexa-chlorinated furans across the study sites.