Vanadium concentrations in settled outdoor dust particles

Atmospheric dustfall is an important aspect of urban dust studies. Vanadium is considered as the marker element of air pollution emitted from residual oil and coal combustion. In this study, vanadium levels of outdoor dust particles are determined. The studied area covers the six sites located in Adapazarí (Turkey), which represents an earthquake-hit environment. The mass deposition rate was calculated for each sampling plate over the 30-days collection periods. The deposition rates for the six places in Adapazarí ranged from 20.5 to 84.9 microg/cm2/day. The arithmetic mean deposition rate for all places was 45.3 microg/cm2/day. Total dust deposition and vanadium loadings typically increased in magnitude according to the area order: Kampus > Serdivan > Cark C. > Ozanlar > Erenler > Yeşiltepe and Kampus > Serdivan > Cark C. > Ozanlar > Erenler > Yeşiltepe, respectively. The results suggested that vanadium may be useful for assessing the level of environmental pollution.