Tag Archive for: Elemental Carbon

Being a criteria pollutant Fine Particulate Matter (PM_2.5) exposure  not only affects human health but also deteriorates environmental health, air quality and artifacts. Traffic, biomass burning and industrial activities are important contributors to ambient fine particulate matter in major cities of the world. Therefore, to reduce fine particulate matter pollution and the considerable disease burden it causes solutions to bring down ambient fine particulate matter are needed. Carbonaceous aerosols are found to be a significant contributor to fine particulate matter. These aerosols are subdivided into organic carbon and elemental carbon. Elemental carbon is released from primary sources whereas organic carbon can be released either from primary or secondary sources. This paper presents a comprehensive critical review of the assessment of fine particulate matter and its carbonaceous content in the past decade on different sites in New Delhi, the capital of India. Considerable health effects of particulate pollution have also been discussed in the paper. Critically reviewed data showed a non – significant increase in the trend of particulate matter concentration. It was also shown through the data of each study that the emission standards of WHO exceeded by 15 times whereas for NAAQS they exceeded by 5 times respectively.