APPLICATION OF PATTERN RECOGNITION TO SPECIATION DATA OF HEAVY METALS IN SUSPENDED PARTICULATES OF URBAN AIR

In order to get a better knowledge of the air pollution levels of the urban air of Barcelona,twelvesamples from three stations of the air-monitoring control network were analysed.Each control station isrepresentative of a different environmental situation.Thus the station at Plaa Molina responds to asimple domestic and urban traffic situation;the station at Poble Nou to the influence of medium andsmall industries,mainly metallurgical;and the station at Montcada to a zone in which there existimportant industries,a cement factory,two highways and railroads.The total content of unsedimentable particles,three inorganic anions(chlorides,sulphates andnitrates)and six heavy metals(Fe,Pb,Cu,Mn,Cr and Cd)were determined on all the samples obtainedduring the same period of time.The use of an analytical scheme of sequential extraction has alsopermitted the subdivision of the total content of each metal into the following four fractions:(1)solubleor exchangeable;(2)associated with carbonates and/or with iron and manganese oxides;(3)bound toorganic matter;and(4)residual.The use of principal component analysis applied to the data as a whole showed the associations andcorrelations between the various parameters as well as between the different above mentioned fractions.The predominant presence of Cd in the‘soluble or exchangeable’fraction is confirmed,while the othermetals are mainly associated with the‘carbonates and/or Fe and Mn oxides’and‘bound to organicmatter’fractions.Hierarchical cluster analysis applied to the twelve samples showed clearly the presence of threedifferent classes closely related to the origin(station)of the samples.Thus it becomes feasible to proposefor each station a possible profile of the content in terms of the different parameters considered.