• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.174-182
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• 2011

The present study evaluated the major lead sources in a steel metallurgy industrialized city by measuring lead isotopes/lead concentrations of ambient air and potential sources in an industrial area and residential areas according to relative distance. The quality control program obtained during the measurement procedure for lead isotopes and concentrations exhibited $0.5ng/m^3$ for method detection limit, more than 90% for recoveries of standard particulate matters, and lower than 0.2% for reproducibility errors of four lead isotopes ($^{204}Pb$, $^{206}Pb$, $^{207}Pb$, $^{208}Pb$). For all three lead isotope ratios ($^{206}Pb/^{204}Pb$, $^{207}Pb/^{206}Pb$, $^{208}Pb/^{206}Pb$), the ratios were obtained in the industrial area were closer to nearby residential area than those of a residential area far away from the industrial area, thereby suggesting that lead sources were more similar each other in the industrial and nearby residential area. Furthermore, for both summer and winter seasons ambient lead concentrations were more than four times higher in the industrial area than in the residential areas and in turn, they were higher in the nearby residential area compared with the far-away residential area. As a result, it was suggested that lead emitted from the industrial area would influence more the ambient lead in the nearby residential area than the far-away residential area. Both slag and traffic emissions are likely to be major lead sources in the industrial and nearby residential areas, since their three lead isotope ratios ($^{206}Pb/^{204}Pb$, $^{207}Pb/^{206}Pb$, $^{208}Pb/^{206}Pb$) were similar to the ratios obtained from ambient air of these two areas. In addition, the lead isotope ratios revealed different pattern between seasons, and the ambient lead concentrations were higher for winter than for summer.