Characterization of PM10 in urban and rural area

Particulate matter (PM10) was major pollutants of the air pollutions which it can easily adsorbed toxic substances such as organic compounds that contribute to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals. Urban area has higher concentration of PM10 than rural area because of urbanization and industrial activity that resulted to the existence of PAHs that might lead to negative impact neither on society nor for the environment and natural resources. The 3 days sampling was done in Balok (urban area) and Jeli (rural area) from 28th February — 2nd March 2019 and 10th July - 12th July 2019 respectively. The glasswares were baked in furnace for 400 °C and filter paper were baked for 300 °C. The samples extracted through ultrasonification process using ultrasonic bath and continued with solid-phase extraction (SPE) process then centrifuged until 2 mL by using nitrogen evaporater before analysed using GC-MS. The results showed that average concentration of PM10 in Balok was 89.120 pg/m3 (ranging from 41.667 — 114.583 µg/m3) and Jell was 17.361 µg/m3 (ranging from 13.889 — 20.833 p.g/m3). The detected PAHs for Balok and Jeli is 16 PAHs and 2 PAHs (naphthalene and acenaphthene). Meteorological and anthropogenic activity might be as the factors that contribute to higher concentration of PM10 and more PAHs compound detected in Balok than Jell. It can be concluded that the average concentration of PM10 for Balok was much higher than Jeli but still under the Malaysia ambient air quality standard.