Effectiveness of chemical road dust suppressants on paved roads of Pimpri Chinchwad

Currently, reducing road dust emissions is a serious problem for safe and environment protective transportation, leading to Particulate Matter (PM) limit violations and high population exposures to dust containing poisonous metals and mineral particles. Nowadays chemical road dust suppressants are being employed more frequently as a viable remedy to reduce roadside dust emissions.

Two seasons winter and summer were selected for the study and during which, typically 3 types of roads as per average traffic density and land-use category identified in the city of Pimpri Chinchwad were sprayed. Dry samples were taken on day one from a 1 m2 area using a portable vacuum cleaner that was run for 8 to 10 min each. Similarly, samples were collected in the same area after 5-10 min after spraying with Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) and Magnesium Chloride (MgCl2). Also, the second set ofsamples was collected after 24 h of chemical applied.

Maximum reduction in silt loading occurred i.e., 99.73% on the application of 30 g/m2 of CaCl2 . Reduction observed in emission factor of PM2.5 was 97.78% and in the case of PM10 it was 97.59%. While increase in average particle size was observed up to 27.88 µm.

Both the suppressant efficient in suppressing the road dust but the day 1 result shows more dust suppression as compared to the day 2 dust suppression also as per the dust loading CaCl2 is a better dust suppressant than MgCl2.