Indoor Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Concentration in Central India

The indoor burning of different materials like fuels, incense, mosquito coil, candles etc. results in generation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in an uncontrolled manner. The PAH, i.e., Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) is considered as most toxic or carcinogenic and the toxicity of other PAHs is related to this compound. Therefore, the concentration and emission fluxes of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emitted during burning of commonly used indoor materials, i.e., 15 fuels (i.e., biomass (BM), coal (C), cow dung (CD), kerosene (K)), 4 incense (IS) and mosquito coil (MC) in Raipur district, Chhattisgarh, central India is described. The samples were taken in September 2013 in indoor environments and respective smoke emitted were collected using high volume United State of America (USA) air sampler on quartz fiber filters. The concentration of total 13 PAHs ( n-ary sumation PAH(13)) (i.e., phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, benzo(a)-pyrene, dibenz(ah)anthracene, benzo(ghi) perylene, indeno1,2,3-(cd)pyrene, and coronene) in particulate matter (PM10) in the indoor air during burning of the fuels, IS and MC materials ranged from 367-92052ng m(-3), 4089-14047ng m(-3), and 66-103ng m(-3) with mean values of 7767 +/- 11809ng m(-3), 9977 +/- 4137ng m(-3), and 74 +/- 20ng m(-3), respectively. The mean concentration of the n-ary sumation PAH(13) present in indoor environment is much higher than the WHO limit value of 1.0ng m(-3). The sources and toxicities of PAHs are discussed.