An investigation of volatile organic compounds at five sites in Hong Kong
Air samples of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were collected using canisters at five sites in Hong Kong from October to December 1998. Samples were collected at urban residential, urban commercial, urban industrial, new developed and rural area to measure their concentration and identify the atmospheric composition of VOCs in Hong Kong. The air samples collected by the canisters were analyzed for VOCs using Gas Chromatography and Mass Selective Detector (GC-MSD) according to the USEPA TO-14 procedures. The most commonly found VOCs in sample include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m,p-xylene and o-xylene. Average concentrations in urban area were in the range of 1.5--12.3 {micro} g/m{sup 3} for benzene, 2--733 {micro} g/m{sup 3} for toluene, 1.7--177 {micro} g/m{sup 3} for ethylbenzene, 1--33 {micro} g/m{sup 3} for m,p-xylene and 1.5--72 {micro} g/m{sup 3} for o-xylene. High VOC levels found in industrial area were from industrial emission and vehicle exhaust. The relative abundance of aromatic compounds showed that more benzene and less toluene contributed to the area when the influence of urban area source is less. The correlation between benzene and toluene is [benzene = 0.15 toluene +1.36] with correlation coefficient (R{sup 2}) of 0.77. Hong Kong had low B/T ratio with other Asian cities ({approximately} 0.1). Temporal variation was conducted based upon time-integrated (1.5 hour) samples. Three peaks of five aromatic compounds were found at 9:00--10:30, 12:00--13:30 and 16:30--18:00.
- Research Organization:
- Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., Kowloon (HK)
- OSTI ID:
- 20006516
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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