CHARACTERIZATION AND MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF AEROSOLS IN TEHRAN TRAFFIC ZONE

The identification of effective factors in air pollution is necessary to plan for decreasing the impacts. Tehran is one of the most polluted cities in Iran and the world, which is constantly affected by air pollution. The traffic zone is attributed to most crowded places in Tehran with some limitations for vehicles. In this study, samples were taken from the limited traffic zone in Tehran.
The sampling was done with high volume sampler for a period of 6 -24 h. Preliminary SEM/EDS measurements were performed on some of the samples to get elemental information on individual aerosol particles. The aerosols were collected by fiberglass filters and using a sampling flow of 1.5 m3 / min.
The results show that the largest source of atmospheric particles in Tehran is due to the combustion of fuel released by mobile resources such as transportation and also, stationary resources such as industrial and factories as the second source of atmospheric particles production. Also, mineral particles with irregular shape were observed in coarse particle which may be mainly derived from natural sources such as soil dust, resuspension of dust from road, crust and some other anthropogenic activities such as construction and vehicles.
These particles morphology and chemical composition, illustrate an abundance of natural elements within the zone. However, some of the elements presented are directly related to human activities, and are interested by the public health and environmental perspectives.