Inorganic pollutants in the indoor environment of the Moravian Library: assessment of Cd, Pb, Cu, and Zn in total suspen
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Inorganic pollutants in the indoor environment of the Moravian Library: assessment of Cd, Pb, Cu, and Zn in total suspended particles and dust using HR-CS GF-AAS Ondřej Zvěřina & Pavel Coufalík & Jan Šimůnek & Přemysl Kachlík & Radka Chlupová & Jindra Pavelková
Received: 6 May 2020 / Accepted: 10 November 2020 / Published online: 19 November 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract In this study, the occurrence of lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn) in the environment of the Moravian Library in Brno, the second largest library in Czechia, was in focus. The materials of interest were airborne particles, dust originating from books, and also book pages. Total suspended particles (TSP) were sampled in different areas of the library, including the reading room, the book depository, and an external book warehouse. Samples of dusts were obtained from the book-cleaning system, and, moreover, some pages taken from old books were also analyzed. Samples were microwave-digested and analyzed using graphite furnace high-resolution continuum source AAS (HR-CS GF-AAS). During the analysis, possibilities of the signal intensity modulation of the HR-CS technique were demonstrated and employed in order to determine Zn, an element which is rarely determined by GF-AAS. The median TSP concentrations (in ng/m3) were as follows: Pb, 4.4; Cd, 0.07; Cu, 2.6; and Zn, 20.9. Such concentrations are safely below allowed limits. Contents of Pb determined in dust samples and book pages O. Zvěřina (*) : J. Šimůnek Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] P. Coufalík Institute of Analytical Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Veveří 97, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic P. Kachlík : R. Chlupová : J. Pavelková Moravian Library in Brno, Kounicova 65a, 601 87 Brno, Czech Republic
were slightly higher (up to 707 and 38 mg/kg, respectively) than the usually reported values. However, none of these results indicate a potential risk to library staff or readers. Keywords Total suspended particles . Book depository . Heavy metals . Indoor environment . High-resolution continuum source atomic absorption spectrometry
Introduction Both the importance of and interest in the quality of indoor environments have been growing in recent decades (Rasmussen et al. 2013). Amongst the various potential risk factors, settled dust and airborne particles are of special significance as they act as carriers of both organic and inorganic pollutants. Such materials may affect human health via inhalation, skin contact, or unintentional ingestion. Although environments inside buildings are driven by outdoor conditions, indoor dust usually exhibits higher levels of metal contamination, mainly because of limited rates of air exchange and, in some cases, also because of the presence of locally specific sources (Hassan 2012; Tan et al. 2016), for instance, museum exhibits that had been preserved by heavy metal compounds (Marcotte et al. 2017). The presenc
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