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Distribution and health risk assessment of mercury in urban street dust from coal energy dominant Huainan City, China

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Abstract

High levels of mercury contamination in urban street dust pose a great threat to human health. In this study, representative urban street dust samples in different urban zones were collected from industrial Huainan City, Eastern China. The distribution and human health risk of Hg in urban street dusts were investigated. In comparison with the soil background Hg values of Huainan and China, the average Hg concentration (0.16 ± 0.14 mg kg−1, n = 50) was significantly elevated, with a variation ranging from 0.02 to 0.56 mg kg−1. Among the seven different urban zones, the industrial district had the highest levels of Hg, potentially deriving predominantly from the dust emissions of the nearby Pingwei coal-fired power plant. In addition, Hg concentrations in dust samples appear to increase with the decrease of particle size. The result of health risk assessment on Hg in these urban street dusts indicated that there was no significant risk of carcinogenesis for the adults living in Huainan city.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41373108), National Science and Technology Support Program (2012BAC10B02), Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 1208085ME66), and Key Foundation of Anhui Province Education Department (No. KJ2012A022). We acknowledge editors and reviewers for polishing the language of the paper and for in-depth discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resource and Environment Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Liugen Zheng, Jiamin Fan, Xiaoyu Huang, Chunlu Jiang & Hua Cheng

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center for Mines Environmental Remediation and Wetland Ecological Security, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Liugen Zheng & Hua Cheng

  3. School of Life Sciences, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Quan Tang

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  1. Liugen Zheng
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Correspondence to Liugen Zheng.

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Zheng, L., Tang, Q., Fan, J. et al. Distribution and health risk assessment of mercury in urban street dust from coal energy dominant Huainan City, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 9316–9322 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4089-3

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