Study on distribution and source apportionment of heavy metals in atmospheric particulate matter in Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia sections of the Yellow River of China

摘要

The distribution and source apportionment of 12 heavy metals including Hg, As, Cd, Pb, Cr, Ni, Cu, V, Co, Zn, Mn and Ba in atmospheric particulate matter (APM) at 5 samplings sites from Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia sections of the Yellow River of China in 2012 year were studied in this paper. The results indicated that Zn had a maximum mean concentration at T5 (Gansu Province), followed by As. The order of average concentrations of all heavy metals was as follows: Zn>Mn>As＞Cu>Pb>Cr>V>Ni>Cd>Hg>Co, Ba. According to enrichment factors (EF), only Mn was seriously enriched at all sampling sites, especially at T4, which indicated that anthropic source is dominant and the others were not enriched. The results of cluster analysis (CA) showed that 12 heavy metals from 5 sampling sites were clustered into four different groups at the linkage distance of 10 and they came from a variety of sources such as fuel, fertilizers, agrochemicals and mining.