Bioavailability and toxicity of trace metals bound particulate matter in quasi fine and accumulation ranges in glass industrial zone of India

The current study focuses on the fractionation of size-segregated particulate matter (PM 1.0 and PM 0.5 ) associated trace metals in an industrial area in Firozabad, India. The overall mean concentrations of size-segregated PM in urban as well as in rural areas were found as PM 1.0 (86.8µg/m 3 ), PM 0.5 (38.3 µg/m 3 ), and PM 1.0 (83.7 µg/m 3 ), PM 0.5 (85.9 µg/m 3 ), respectively. The rural area is highly affected by PM pollution. The highest PM concentration was found in winter, especially in the month of November [PM 1.0 (135.1µg/m 3 ), PM 0.5 (122.6 µg/m 3 )], followed by December [PM 1.0 (84.9µg/m 3 ), PM 0.5 (61.7µg/m 3 )]. In urban (7.8 and 3.9 µg/m 3 ) and rural (11.9 and 3.0 µg/m 3 ) sampling sites, total metal concentration was highly associated with the residual fraction, followed by the Exchangeable fraction. In the winter and summer seasons total metal concentration was highly associated with the residual (12.1 and 7.6 µg/m 3 ) fraction, followed by the Exchangeable fraction, which means total metals concentration was strongly bound with particulate matter and less mobile in nature. Toxic metals showed 2.4 times higher bioavailability in winter. Rural sampling site have 1.2 times higher bioavailability of metals from the Urban site. Carcinogenic metals such as Cd, Cr, Pb, and Ni have high enrichment factor values, which arise from anthropogenic sources. Carcinogenic risk assessment concluded that Cr (1.64E-02 to 9.53E-4) showed the highest carcinogenic health risk to children as well as adults among the analyzed metals. In urban and rural sampling sites during winter, Co showed a non-carcinogenic health risk to children.