November 2017, Volume 4, Issue 11 JETIR (ISSN-2349-5162) JETIR1711111 Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR) www.jetir.org 649 ENVIRONMENTAL MAGNETIC AND GEOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ATMOSPHERIC PARTICULATE DUST IN VISAKHAPATNAM CITY, INDIA: A NEW TECHNIQUE OF TEXTILE MONITORING OF POLLUTION Ravichandra Kammula 1,2 , Srinivasa Rao Goddu 1 , Prasada Rao P.V.V. 3 , Nathani Basavaiah 4 1 Department of Physics, GITAM Institute of Technology, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam – 530 045, Andhra Pradesh, India 2 Department of Geosciences, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Etcherla-532 410, Srikakulam (District), Andhra Pradesh, India 3 Department of Environmental Sciences, College of Sci. and Tech., Andhra University, Visakhapatnam – 530 003, Andhra Pradesh, India 4 Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Kalamboli, New Panvel, Navi Mumbai – 410 218, India Abstract—Magnetic analysis is done on 76 suspended particulate dust samples to detect hazardous levels in Visakhapatnam city (also known as Vizag) and distinguish between the areas affected by traffic and industrial pollution. A new method of sampling (Textile sampling method) is used to collect the suspended particles (SP). The correlation coefficient between weight of the SP obtained from textile method and classical High Volume Sampler (HVS) is found to be R=0.99. The variations of magnetic susceptibility (k) distinguish pollution source within the city and is mainly controlled by the local pollution effect. The percentage frequency dependence susceptibility (kfd %) values range between 3 and 9%indicating high ultrafine percentage of magnetic grains in the Particulate Matter (PM) at various sampling sites. Higher kfd% values are found at heavy traffic areas pointing out that vehicular emissions contain a higher percentage of ultrafine superparamagnetic (SP) grains than the SP in industrial zones. Magnetic mineralogy of the suspended dust is dominated by a magnetite-like phase. Hysteresis parameters measured for some samples are typical for pseudo-single domain magnetite. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis on few selected samples indicates very high concentrations of heavy metals Mn, Zn, Pb, Cr and Cu which are far beyond the permissible limit. The correlation of kfd% with Cr and Ni is well expressed at a significance level of P=0.05 in our results. Also the correlation of magnetic susceptibility k with Cr, Mn and Ni is good indicating that the magnetic parameters respond to spatial distribution of heavy metals. The variation of kfd% is interpreted as the relative degree of human health hazardous zones. Index Terms—Cloth samplers, environmental magnetic properties, suspended particulate matter, air pollution, heavy metals. I. INTRODUCTION Air pollution is a serious problem in developing countries with fast growing industrialization and poor governmental regulation on environmental issues. These “Fine Suspended Particles” (FSP) vary in size, composition and origin. They originate mainly from combustion processes in vehicles, power plants and industries. FSP between 2.5 μm to 10 μm contain both natural dust materials and transient dust from roads and industries. FSP ranging from 100 nm to 2.5 μm mainly stem from gas to particle conversion, combustion and re-condensed organic and metal vapours [1]. FSP are considered as a threat for human health due to their chemical intolerance for the organism and their penetration into the human respiratory system. Many biological, geochemical, and toxicological studies have proved that FSP matter play a vital role for many cardiopulmonary diseases and lung cancer [2]. Most studies of monitoring air pollution are done in small scales; they are expensive and time consuming. With the existing instrumentation it is almost impossible to get a spatially comprehensive control over the situation especially in large cities of developing countries with poor environmental laws, and unprecedented vehicular and industrial emissions. It is therefore important to explore new methodologies to improve the spatial characterization of FSP matter. The application of fast and cost-efficient methods to detect and monitor hazardous suspended dust in fast growing cities of developing countries is applauded. During the past two decades, magnetometry was explored as a tool to detect environmental pollution in high-resolution scales with relatively low costs and in less time [3-9]. One reason for progress may be the ease of access to materials including fly ashes, roads and road-side dusts, soils and other materials [3-9]. Magnetic properties are dependent on composition, grain size and source of the material, which enables a differentiation of the magnetic signal caused by natural (lithogenic, pedogenic) and anthropogenic (pollution) origins [6, 10-12]. Magnetometry turned out to be especially suitable for detecting heavy metal pollution caused by fly ash, it is based on the fact that during combustion processes both toxic heavy metals and strong magnetic particles (iron oxides or sulphides) are released into the environment [8-9, 13-14]. Measurement of the ferrimagnetic concentration and screening enhanced magnetic signals in polluted urban top-soils, sediments, and road dusts, provides a qualitative estimate of the degree of environmental pollution [8, 15-17]. The present study attempts to use magnetometry, notably magnetic susceptibility, to detect hazardous levels of particulate matter in Visakhapatnam city (also known as Vizag) and to distinguish between areas affected by road traffic and industrial pollution by studying ultrafine dust directly collected on cloth samplers. Previous attempts of studying the degree of environmental pollution using magnetic methods targeted tree leaves and pine needles as natural dust samplers [18-19]. Unavailability of tree leaves of the same species in the study region, and unpredicted rains washing out the dust, limit the possibility for such kind of bio-monitoring. To overcome this limitation [20], we propose an alternative