Determination of the concentrations of volatile organic particulate material by incidence of sawmills

Abstract

In urban areas there is an excessive presence of sawmills that do not have adequate infrastructure or work equipment, they generate organic dust less than 10 µm (PM10) in the surrounding environment; This type of particulate matter is related to various damages to the respiratory system. This research was carried out in the sector of the "La Esperanza" neighborhood of the city of Riobamba-Ecuador, with the purpose of evaluating the degree of contamination by PMV and PMS, which caused health problems such as irritation of the nose, throat and bronchi in their habitants. The need arises to answer the research question: How and in what concentrations does the volatile organic particulate material produced by the sawmills affect the neighboring inhabitants? Analyzes for PMV were performed using the DustTrak™ II equipment and PMS was collected in Petri dishes using the passive method. The measurements recorded maximum values of 42.67 µg/m³, 35.5 µg/m³, 29.83 µg/m³, and minimum values of 7.33 µg/m³, 8.67 µg/m³ and 4.67 µg/m³. m³ for PM10, PM4 and PM2.5, respectively; for PMS, 6 samples were analyzed, of which the highest concentration is found in the main roundabout of the sector with 1.36 mg/cm²/month; exceeding the LMP established by Ecuadorian legislation and the WHO. The morphology of the sedimented particles in the MO was analyzed, which have irregular shapes, identifying long, short, flat, compact and torn fibers. Finally, a map of wind direction and speed was generated with the data from the INAMHI meteorological stations, showing the spatial variation of the behavior of the PMV of 2.5 µm, with an average speed of 1.3 m/s and a NW direction.