| Abstract Title: | Development of the National Monitoring Network for Mercury in the Ambient Air Using Passive Sampling Method |
| Presenter Name: | Gabriela Vítková |
| Company/Institution: | Global Change Research Institute, CAS |
| Session: | Mercury Emissions: Monitoring and Analysis |
| Co-Authors: | Gabriela Vítková,Roman Prokeš |
Abstract Information :
At present, there is no continuous air pollution monitoring of mercury concentrations in the Czech Republic, resp. a monitoring network that could assess the risks associated with possible mercury contamination at background, urban or industrial sites. A pilot study was conducted to determine the level of mercury air pollution at 29 carefully selected locations. The MerPAS passive samplers from Tekran Inc. (Toronto, ON, Canada) were deployed for one month, since 28.4. till 26.5.2021 (ñ 2 days at some sites). Localities covered both background and possibly contaminated sites. Thirteen sites can be taken as background or city background stations, two as urban, there were sites in the vicinity of crematorium, waste incineration plant (two directly in hazardous waste incineration plants), sites near cement plants and one near chemical factory known to be polluted by mercury in the past. For the purpose of a pilot study only one MerPAS was deployed at each site. Sites were often co-located with the network of Czech Hydrometeorological Institute in order to improve the logistics and in future maybe draw on other data measured at the same place. Mercury content was measured by using AMA-254 atomic absorption spectrometer (Altec, Czech Republic) and concentration determination was based on Sampling Ratio of 0.121 m3 day-1 determined in McLagan et al., 2016b. Results confirmed the most suspicious sites to excel in mercury content above others. With the median value of 1.32 ng m-3 the site near chemical factory showed more than six times higher value and two other sites approximately three times higher values. The study confirmed that more detailed and long-term monitoring of selected sites would be beneficial for fulfilling obligations based on the Minamata Convention.
