Location Analysis of Volatile Organic Compounds in Ambient air of Tehran with Arcview Software

Tehran suffers from high levels of air pollution which is negative point for human health. Volatile organic compounds, especially BTEX, are the main air pollutants that play a critical role in atmospheric chemistry of Tehran. Benzene is one of these and causes blood cancer and related diseases. In order to control volatile organic compounds, they should be monitored. To measure the amount of pollutants of VOC in the air of Tehran using mobile instruments, 32 stations were selected, including residential areas, areas of heavy traffic, industrial and controlled areas. The measurements were made over two stages (June and September 2010 and March 2011) and the VOC average concentrations at the first and second stages were 3.14 ppb and 3.67 ppb in the urban area, respectively. The results showed that pollutant emissions in high volume are emitted from refineries and oil storage, as demonstrated by location analysis of volatile organic compounds performed with Arcview software in the stations. According to such location analysis of VOCs, emission of VOCs occurred from refineries in huge quantities and some hotspots with high concentration of VOCs were seen.