Characteristics and provenances of rare earth elements in the atmospheric particles of a coastal city with large-scale optoelectronic industries

摘要

Rare earth elements (REEs) are typical materials in optoelectronic industries; however, the effects of optoelectronic industry on the presence of REEs in atmospheric particle (AP) have seldom been reported. Thus, we investigated the provenance of REEs in APs collected from a coastal city in Southeast China, where there are many optoelectronic enterprises. The results showed that the concentrations of Eu, Tb, and Y were highly elevated in the APs from S23-S25 sites near an optoelectronic company which uses REEs for LED production. Furthermore, significant positive Eu and Tb anomalies were observed in the samples collected from S23-S25 sites. Ternary La-V-Eu, La-V-Tb and La-V-Y plots were used to discriminate the S23-S25 site samples from those from other sites. The Nd-143/Nd-144 versus LREE/HREE plot suggested that the REEs in the APs were mainly affected by vehicle emission and coal combustion.