Author : Bibekananda Bhol, Saswat Ku. Mohanty and Swoyam P. Rout

An attempt has been made to determine the concentration of heavy metals like Cadmium, Copper, Nickel, Zinc, Lead, Manganese and Iron, as well as Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) present in ambient air of the twin cities. The particulate matter like PM10 & PM2.5 and gaseous pollutants like SO2, NOX, O3 & NH3 are also monitored on seasonal basis, where as heavy metals & PAH samples were collected once in a year. The results of heavy metals, PAH, particulate matter and gaseous pollutants are compared with the Ambient Air Quality standard prescribed by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF). Lead at all monitoring stations in the twin cities is within the limit i.e. 0.5 μg/m3. While concentration of Nickel is observed to be more than the standard i.e. 20 ng/m3 except at Jagatpur Industrial Estate, Cuttack and IRC Village, Nayapalli. The monitoring of benzo (a) pyrene was observed only at two places of Cuttack but the concentration are below the prescribed limit, of 1.0 ng/m3. While other components of PAH are reflected in the result. The annual average concentration of PM10 at all locations of the twin cities exceeded the limit of 60 μg/m3, while PM2.5 at four places of Cuttack and three places of Bhubaneswar exceeded the standard i.e. 40 μg/m3. The seasonal range and annual average of particulate matter as well as gaseous pollutants of all the locations were calculated and compared with the Ambient Air Quality standards (NAAQMS, 2005).

Keywords: Heavy metals, Ambient Air Quality standards etc.

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.3,No.5(Dec- 2013)