FNEHR CONFERENCE 1994 ANNEX 24 AIR QUALITY OF PASIR MY9700833 GUDANG INDUSTRIAL ESTATE by Rahmalan Ahmad, Zaiton Majid, M. Rashid M. Yusoff, M. Zahari Abdullah and Abdullah Othman, University of Technology Malaysia. Abstract The composition and distribution of anthropogenic aerosols are of interest mainly because of the health effects from atmospheric pollution to man. The Department of Environment and the Local Authority have been monitoring the levels of TSP and PM10 respectively at two different sites in Pasir Gudang for a number of years. This study was conducted to determine the concentrations of TSP and respirable air particulate matter at another station situated in the middle of the industrial zone. The particulate matter samples were collected by using high volume samplers for 24 hour periods during February to March and September to October 1993. Data included in this paper also provide information on concentrations of water soluble unions and cations and toxic metals in the air particulate. INTRODUCTION In the last two decades, Pasir Gudang has emerged as one of the largest industrial estates in the country. It has attracted local and foreign investor in setting up various types of industries including petrochemical, steel mill, palm oil refinery, fertilizers, cement, chemicals, shipping, offshore rigs, electronics and others. As in most cases, industrial activity has always been associated with some environmental degradation which includes the release of particulate matter into the atmosphere. Air pollution, particularly in major towns and industrial areas, has been a matter of concern to the public and the Government. In Pasir Gudang, the Department of Environment (DOE) has been regularly monitoring the atmospheric total suspended particulate (TSP) levels for a number of years. However, only one sampling station has been established for the collection of TSP data which is situated 529 ' 'i FNEHR CONFERENCE 1994 ANNEX 24 in the Johor Port Authority area. The Pasir Gudang Local Authority (PGLA) is probably the only local authority in the country which has established its air monitoring programme. The PGLA sampling station that is situated in the Pasir Gudang Town Centre has been monitoring the levels of respirable air particulate matter known as PM10 in Pasir Gudang for several years. The concentration and composition of particulate matter from the atmospheric pollution are of interest mainly because of their effect on human health. (Wanner, H.U., 1990). There is a vast amount of data on the concentration of air particulate matter gathered by using the well-know high volume sampling method. A greater part of the data has been used to obtain a direct relationship between ambient particulate matter and its effects on man. (Federal Register, 1971). PM10 which constitutes respirable particles with diameter in the range of 10 urn or less is potentially health hazard because the small particles are able to penetrate into the human respiratory system and deposite in the lungs (Chan and Lippmann, 1980). Furthermore, the total health effect of these particles is not only governed by their physical nature, but also by their chemical composition. Various sources such as wind blown dust, construction works, fuel combustion and many others may contribute to the presence of toxic elements in the air particulate, but almost exclusively, the presence of elements in the forms of fine particles are related to high temperature processes, such as combustion, metal processing furnaces and smelting. This paper reports the study on the composition of air particulate and their concentrations in the atmosphere of the industrial complex. The objective of the study is to evaluate the nature of respirable particles generated in this area as well as to complement the DOE and the PGLA monitoring data. It is expected that industrial activities play a major role in the formation of air particulate in this area. Contributions from the industrial emission sources around the sampling site is very likely to be felt and can be quantified. 530 FNEHR CONFERENCE 1994 ANNEX 24 METHODOLOGY Site Description The TSP and respirable particles data in the present study were gathered from a sampling station situated in the middle of Pasir Gudang industrial complex at Jalan Timah 3, Pasir Gudang (Figure 1). The sampling site is located in an open ground covered with grass and surrounded within 50 meters to two kilometres by various types of industries: steel melting, fertilizers manufacturing, cement production, edible oil refinery, electroplating and a Tenaga National Berhad power generating plant. The nearest building to the sampling site is about 50 metres away. Among factors taken into consideration in choosing the sampling site includes accessibility of the sampling site, safety of the equipment and availability of regular electric power supply. The choice of the sampling station was suitable for purpose of the study which was to evaluate the extent of air paniculate concentrations in the middle of an industrial complex. This sampling station is situated about one kilometre north-east of the DOE TSP sampling station at the Johor Port Authority and about two kilometres south-east of the Local Authority PM10 sampling station at the Pasir Gudang town centre. Sampling And Analysis The equipment used to collect the TSP was the standard high volume air sampler (HVS) model Ecotech 2000, which virtually collects all particles up to 100 um in size. Sampling of the PM10 was carried out by using the size-selective high-volume sampler (model Sierra Anderson) attached directly on to of another HVS. The PM10 sampler has cut-off diameter of 10 um (McFarland, et al., 1984). These equipments were placed one metre above ground since this is the layer of air in which man lives 531 FNEHR CONFERENCE 1994 ANNEX 24 and in which suspended paniculate can have immediate and marked effect on human health. Both samplers were calibrated to operate at a rate of 70m3 per hour for 24 hour sampling period. Sampling of the TSP and PM10 was done simultaneously every other day during February-March, 1993. During the September-October sampling period, the PM10 sampler was replaced by Sierra Anderson five stages Cascade Impactor sampler which was inserted directly into the PM10 size selective high volume sampler. This device effectively separates the respirable particles into five fractions with various sizes as shown in the Table 1. The 20.3 cm x 25.9 cm Graseby GMV P/N G8 10 glass fibre filter was used to collect the TSP and PM10 samples. The sampling system provides an area of 18 cm x 21 cm for effective collection of the air paniculate. The SAC 230 glass fibre filter with slots was used with the cascade impactor to collect the respirable particles of smaller sizes. The filter was conditioned in a dry incubator in a constant room temperature before and after each sampling event. The difference in weight of the sample filter was divided by the total volume of air sampled to give the airborne matter concentration present in the air. SEM-EDAX Model Amray 19301 was used to study the surface morphology and elemental composition of individual particles. Each particle was irradiated for 100 sec at 20 KeV. The instrument has been previously calibrated using pure Al and Cu. Heavy metals such as Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn, Cd and Fe in the paniculate matter samples were measured by using Perkin Elmer HGA-500 coupled to the Perkin Emer Model 5000 Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. A section of 3 cm x 18 cm of the affected area was cut into pieces using stainless scissors and then treated with concentrated nitric acid and heated on a hot plate until the dissolution was completed. The solution was then transferred into a 50 ml volumetric flask and analysed for the heavy metals with the HGA-AAS. Water soluble anions and cations in the air paniculate were determined according to the widely used standard procedure for 532 FNEHR CONFERENCE 1994 ANNEX 24 extracting water soluble inorganic ions from paniculate samples (Schulman and Ernst, 1993). A section of 2 x 18 cm of the affected filter was cut into small pieces with stainless scissor and placed in a glass beaker. The inorganic ions were then extracted from the accumulated particles during the sampling step with a 10 ml portion of ethanol-water (1:9) mixture. The filter was kept immersed in the extracting liquid overnight and then subjected to ultrasonication. After filtration through 0.45-um filter (Type HV; Millipore, Bedford, MA, USA), the extraction liquid containing water soluble ions from the collected air paniculate was immediately subjected to ion chromatographic analysis. When immediate analysis of samples was not possible, the samples were preserved by storage at freezing temperature until the time of then- injection into the ion chromatography system. The Dionex AGM 300 system with AS 4A and CS-5 columns, ion suppressor and conductivity detector was used exclusively for the anions and cations analyses. RESULT AND DISCUSSION Table 2 shown the daily concentration of TSP and PM10 measured during February- March, 1993 in the middle of Pasir Gudang Industrial Complex. The average concentration of TSP and PM10 as well as the PM10/TSP ratio are also given in Table 2. Both TSP and PM10 are very well correlated (r = 0.96) which suggests that the PM10 constituted the TSP concentration. The average TSP value of 139.8 ug/m3 was lower than an average value of 185.2 ug/m3. However these figures were substantially higher than the annual standard of 90 ug/m3 for TSP. Table 2 also indicates that PM10 constitute about 56% of the TSP concentration. This ratio is relatively low compared to such a ratio of about 75% found in the ambient air of Kuala Lumpur (Mohd. Rashid, 1987).