Pertanika 4(2), 193-196(1981)

COMMUNICATION (II)

Airborne Lead at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman,Kuala Lumpur

RINGKASAN

Keputusan daripada satu kajian mengenai kepekatan plumbum di udara di Jalan Tuanku AbdulRahman telah dibentangkan. Purata paras plumbum yang dikira daripada ukuran-ukuran dalam tempohtujuh hari adalah 6.36 jjgm~3. Purata paras yang maksima adalah 17. 79 ixgm'3 dan minima 1.43 fJgm~3.Satu analisa bandingan keputusan kami dengan yang didapati dari bandar-bandar di Amerika Syarikat,Eropah dan Jepun telah dibuat.

INTRODUCTION

Although traces of lead are found in normalfoods, it is harmful to man and animals even atrelatively low concentrations. Its toxic effects arewell documented (Smith and Waldron, 1974;Chisolm, 1971). In the absence of other leademitting sources in urban areas compounds inexhaust gas discharged into the atmosphere frommotor vehicles can be regarded as the only sourceof lead pollutants.

The public in urban areas may be exposed toairborne lead pollutants in two distinct ways;through respiratory intake or through ingestionof contaminated food.

Very little information on the lead concentra-tion in the air in Malaysian cities is available.Hence it is of interest to establish the levels of leadconcentration in Kuala Lumpur with heavy trafficand a non-urban area with low traffic. Resultsfrom such a study would determine whether ornot a more extensive monitoring system should beestablished.

This paper reports the findings of our investi-gation of airborne lead carried between 16thMarch - 22nd March 1981 along a busy road,Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur, withan average traffic volume of 25,000 vehicles perday. A similar study which was carried out on9th May - 13 May, 1979 at Universiti PertanianMalaysia campus located some 20 km from KualaLumpur is also reported. These two locationsrepresent areas of heavy and low traffic densitiesrespectively.

SAMPLING AND ANALYSIS

A high-volume air sampler (Microscientific)was used for collection of lead particulates. The

total volume of air sample was recorded andcalculated as the product of mean flow rate andtime. It was assumed that the mean flow rate waslinear. It is not actually correct but the errorintroduced by this simplification is not ordinarilyserious (Anon, 1975). The high volume samplerwas located on the pavement of Jalan TuankuAbdul Rahman 1 m away from the road and 0.8 mabove road level. The traffic in the area consistedmainly of cars with lead petrol-fueled engines. Thevehicle frequency amounted to 2000 cars perhour in the rush hours.

Cellulose filters (Whatman No 41) of size25 cm X 20 cm were used without further treat-ment (Janssen and Dains, 1975). They werechanged hourly. After exposure the filters weredigested completely in a perchloric : nitric acidmixture (1:4). Unexposed filter papers as blankswere treated similarly (Butler and Macmurdo,1974). The lead content of the solution obtainedwas determined by an ICP-Emission Spectrophoto-meter (Labtest 700-2000) using a lead line of2203.63A.

The number of vehicles was recorded using ahand-operated counter.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Hourly averages of lead concentration and thecorresponding hourly traffic for the 7-day studyare shown in Figs la, 1b, lc, Id, le, If and lgcorresponding to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundayrespectively.

The daily averages of lead were 7.14, 6.00,5.99, 6.19, 7.17, 6.09 and 5.91 jugm"3 and themean of these daily averages were 6,36 figm'3.Bove and Siebenberg (1974) reported a dailyaverage of lead of 7.5 jugm"3 in New York city on

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06 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 l« 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 2 3 4 5

Figure 1. Hourly average lead concentration (-&-&-) and traffic volume (—iAbdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur.

- • — ) at Jalan Tuanku

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AIRBORNE LEAD AT JALAN TUANKU ABDUL RAHMAN

a 10 week-study. The average urban curbsideconcentration of lead determined in and aroundHonolulu was 7.7 jugm"3. (Jernigen, Ray and Duce1974). In Germany it has been reported that inlarge cities in are^s with low traffic and dependingupon weather conditions, lead content in the airwas approximately 0.5 — 4.0 Atgm"3 and in areaswith heavy traffic 15.0 — 40.0 jugm"3 was noted.(Environment Directorate, 1972). W.H.O. ExpertCommittee (196^) reported that the non-urbansites showed less than 0.5 figm~3 of lead while theurban sites had values from 1.0 — 5.10 ̂ gm~3. Thehighest levels recorded during rush hours were14 — 25 jugrn"3- The Commission of EuropeanCommunities (1973) reported the results ofcontinuous monitoring from 1971-72 in 27European cities. In non-urban areas the monthlyaverages of lead were less than 0.5 j/gm"3 and intraffic areas monthly averages up to 6.5 £tgm~3 leadwere recorded. The ambient air lead levels at15 national sampling stations in Japan in 1973were 0.30 ugm for the average 24 hr value and2.72 fJigm for the maximum and 0.01 jugm"3

for the minimum (Environment Agency, Japan1975). From our preliminary study it is apparentthat lead concentration in the air in Kuala Lumpurexceeded those of Japanese cities and is similar tothose of many European or American cities.

The frequency distribution for lead concen-tration in the 1 hr samples (164) grouped in class

intervals of 0 - 2.0, 2.1 -4 .0 ,4 .1 -6 .0 ,6 .1 - 8 . 0 ,8.1 - 10.0, 10.1 - 12.0, 12.1 - 14.0, 14.1 - 16.0,and 16.1 - 18.0 were 6.7, 29.9, 12.2, 16.5, 18.9,8.5, 4.9, 1.8 and 0.8 percent respectively. Themaximum concentration was 17.79 and theminimum 1,43 jugm"3.

Several workers reported good correlation oftraffic volume with lead concentration (Bove andSiebenberg, 1974). However in our study we couldonly establish linear relationship between the twoparameters on Tuesday (17th March) and Sunday(22nd March). The lead concentration and thetraffic density on a daily basis is shown in Fig. 2.In this case there was insufficient evidence tosuggest a linear relationship of traffic density andlead concentration in the air, Meterologjcal factorsparticularly those at micro-level e.g. turbulence,tunnel effect, fumigation and stability of leadparticulates may play a more important role inexplaining the variation. Most reported seasonalvariation in lead concentration (Tepper and Levin,1972; Georgi and Jost, 1971). Hence caution mustbe exercised in extrapolating short term resultsto long term averages (e.g. yearly).

The daily averages of lead monitored atUniversiti Pertanian Malaysia campus were 0.35and 0.18 on weekdays (9th and 10th May) and0.19 and 0.26 jugm"3 on weekend (12th and 13thMay 1969). Although no actual traffic volume was

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16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd March, 1981

Figure 2. Daily average lead concentration f-A-A—) and daily traffic ( • • ) at Jalan TuankuAbdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur.

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K. S. LOW AND C. K. LEE

recorded, traffic was relatively light compared toKuala Lumpur city where the daily traffic rangeon Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman was 23000 to30000 vehicles based on our study. This confirmsthe fact that people who live in close proximity todense automobile traffic are exposed to appreciablyhigher concentration of lead than others who arefarther away. For urban stations an averageconcentration of lead of 1.10 jugm"3 has beenreported by McMullen and co-workers. For non-urban stations (near the city) the average was0.21 jugrn"3; for stations somewhat farther removedit was 0.10 /igm~2; and for remote areas,0.02 3

REFERENCES

ANON (1975): Environmental Pollutants - SelectedAnalytical Methods. Scope 6. Butterworth, Condon: 8

BOVE, J.L., SIEBENBERG, S. (1974): Airborne lead andcarbon monoxide at 45th St., New York City.Analysis of Industrial Air Pollutants. Vol. Ill in MSSSeries on Air Pollution. MSS Information CooperationNew York. 68-70.

BUTLER, J.D., MACMURDO, S.D. (1974): Interior andexterior atmospheric lead concentrations of a housesituated near an urban motorway. Intern. J. Environ-mental Studies. 6: 181-184.

CONCLUSION

Results indicate clearly that air over roadswith heavy traffic contained more lead than airover roads with light traffic. The average leadconcentration in Kuala Lumpur city air of6.36 /igm~3 is considerably higher than the WorldHealth Organization Air Quality Guides for thelevel I criterion of 2 fJigm'3 (Goldsmith, 1969).The Malaysian Air Quality Standard proposed forall zones the lead concentration over 24-hr averageshould be less than 0.7 ldgm~3 (Environmental AirQuality Standards Committee, 1974).

Low levels of lead in air (< 2 /igm"3) could beachieved if the number of vehicles entering thecity could be reduced * drastically. Alternativelythe use of non-leaded petrol should be encouraged.The latter suggestion may have some seriouseconomic implications.

We propose the setting up of a more com-prehensive monitoring system for lead (and otherpollutants) in air in and around Malaysian urbanareas to establish whether the concentration oflead has reached a level hazardous to publichealth.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to express their thanksto Mr. Low Koon Seet for helping in the statisticalanalysis and Messrs H.H. Bah, Y.K. Ng, Zain Azlan,S.L. Phua for technical assistance.

K.S. Low and CK. LeeJabatan Kimia,Universiti Pertanian Malaysia,Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

CHILSOM, J.J. (1971):224: 15-23.

Lead poisoning. Scient. Am.

Environmental Protection Societyof Malaysia.

Gurmit Singh

COMMISSION O F EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES. (1973):Air lead concentration in the European CommunityYearly Report: April 1971 - March 1972.Luxembourg.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY, JAPAN (1975): Results ofair pollution survey, Tokyo. 148-153.

ENVIRONMENT DIRECTORATE (1972): Results onThird Technical Meeting on occurrence andsignificance of chemicals in the environment.

GEOR.GI, H.W., JOST, D. (1971): On the lead concentra-tion in an urban acerosol Atmorph Environ.5: 725-727.

GOLDSMITH, J.R. (1969): Epidemiological Status basesfor possible air quality criteria foi lead. J. Air Pollut.Control Ass. 19: 714-721.

JASSEN, M., DAINS, R. (1975): Man's impact onatmospheric lead concentrations - pollution sourcesand baseline levels in Western Europe. Water, Air andSoil Pollution. 5: 97-107.

JERNIGAN, E.L., RAY, B.J., DUCE, R.A. (1974): Leadand bromine in atmospheric paniculate matter onOahu, Hawaii. Analysis of Industrial PollutanteVol. Ill in MSS series on Air Pollution. MSSInformation Cooperation. New York. 71-76.

REPORT IN THE FORMULATION O F ENVIRON-MENT AIR QUALITY STANDARDS MALAYSIA(1974): Environmental Air Quality StandardsCommittee. General Planning Unit. PMS Dept. 1974.

SMITH, D.B., WALDRON, W.A. (1974): Lead behaviourand criminality. Ecologist. 10: 367-377.

TEPPER, L.B., LEVIN, L.S. (1972): A survey of air andpopulation lead levels in selected American Com-munities. Final report to the US EPA.

(Received 12 May 1981)

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