Domestic biomass heating and wildfires strongly affect particulate matter (PM) concentration in the atmosphere. The individuation of alternative chemical tracers may provide a valuable tool to apportion different possible contributions to biomass burning.
The ability of particulate matter (PM) to induce oxidative stress is frequently estimated by acellular oxidative potential (OP) assays, such as ascorbic acid (AA) and 1,4-dithiothreitol (DTT), used as proxy of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in biological systems, and particle-bound ROS measurement, such as 20,70-dichlorodihydrofluorescein (DCFH) assay.
A very-low volume sampler of particulate matter (PM) on membrane filters, recently developed with the purpose of allowing spatially-resolved determination of PM and of its chemical components, was employed from December 2016 to February 2018 in a wide and dense monitoring network across Terni, an urban and industrial hot-spot of Central Italy (23 sampling sites, about 1 km between each other). Terni basin can be considered as an open air laboratory for studying the spatial distribution of PM, as it includes several spatially disaggregated sources.
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