How incense and joss paper burning during the worship activities influences ambient mercury concentrations in indoor and outdoor environments of an Asian temple?

This study firstly investigated the species, concentration variation, and emission factors of mercury emitted from the burning of incenses and joss papers in an Asian temple. Both indoor and outdoor speciated mercury (GEM, GOM, and PHg) were sampled by manual samplers, while ambient GEM at an indoor site was in-situ monitored by a continuous GEM monitor. Field measurement results showed that the total atmospheric mercury (TAM) concentrations in indoor and outdoor environments were in the range of 8.03-35.72 and 6.03-31.35 ng/m3, respectively. The indoor and outdoor ratios (I/O) of TAM in the daytime and at nighttime were in the range of 0.64-0.90 and 1.50-2.04, respectively. The concentrations of GEM, GOM, and PHg during the holiday periods were approximately 1-4 times higher than those during the non-holiday periods. GEM was the dominant mercury species in the indoor and outdoor environments and accounted for 63-81% of TAM, while the oxidized mercury accounted for 19-37% of TAM. Burning incenses and joss papers in a combustion chamber showed that the concentration of GEM from joss paper burning ranged from 4.07 to 11.62 µg/m3, or about 13.97 times higher than that of incense burning, while the concentration of PHg from incense burning ranged from 95.91 to 135.07 ng/m3, or about 3.29 times higher than that of joss paper burning. The emission factors of incense burning were 10.39 ng/g of GEM and 1.40 ng/g of PHg, while those of joss paper burning were 12.65 ng/g of GEM and 1.27 ng/g of PHg, respectively. This study revealed that speciated mercury emitted from worship activities had significant influence on the indoor and outdoor mercury concentrations in an Asian temple. Higher intensity of worship activities during holidays resulted in a higher concentration of speciated mercury in indoor and outdoor air, which might cause health threats to worshipers, staffs, and surrounding inhabitants through long-term exposure.

Partition and tempospatial variation of gaseous and particulate mercury at a unique mercury-contaminated remediation site.

This study investigated the seasonal variation and spatial distribution of gaseous and particulate mercury at a unique mercury-contaminated remediation site located at the near-coastal region of Tainan City, Taiwan. Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), particulate mercury (PTM), and dustfall mercury (DFM) were measured at six nearby sites from November 2009 to September 2010. A newly issued Method for Sampling and Analyzing Mercury in Air (National Institute of Environmental Analysis [NIEA] Method A304.10C) translated from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 10-5, was applied for the measurement of atmospheric mercury in this particular study. One-year field measurements showed that the seasonal averaged concentrations of GEM and PTM were in the range of 5.56-12.60 and 0.06-0.22 ng/m3, respectively, whereas the seasonal averaged deposition fluxes of DFM were in the range of 27.0-56.8 g/km2-month. The maximum concentrations of GEM and PTM were 38.95 and 0.58 ng/m3, respectively. The atmospheric mercury apportioned as 97.42-99.87% GEM and 0.13-2.58% PTM. As a whole, the concentrations of mercury species were higher in the springtime and summertime than those in the wintertime and fall. The southern winds generally brought higher mercury concentrations, whereas the northern winds brought relatively lower mercury concentrations, to the nearby fishing villages. This study revealed that the mercury-contaminated remediation site, an abandoned chlor-alkali manufacturing plant, was the major mercury emission source that caused severe atmospheric mercury contamination over the investigation region. The hot spot of mercury emissions was allocated at the southern tip of the abandoned chlor-alkali manufacturing plant. On-site continuous monitoring of GEM at the mercury-contaminated remediation site observed that GEM concentrations during the open excavation period were 2-3 times higher than those during the nonexcavation period.