Source Apportionment Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons In Sediments Of Typical Rivers Of China Using Positive Matrix Factorization And Factor Analysis With Non-negative Constraints

Source apportionment is to study the impact and effect of sources of pollutants to environment around, which is the basis for pollution control for environmental pollutants. Receptor models, the preferred source apportionment methods, assess contributions from all the major sources based on observations at sampling sites, the "receptors". Receptor models have been widely used for source apportionment of pollutants in various environmental media. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) and factor analysis with non-negative constraints (FA-NNC) are two advanced receptor models. They have been used for source apportionment of organic pollutants by many researchers. Compared with the traditional method of factor analysis, the factor loadings and scores obtained from PMF and FA-NNC can be non-negative, which makes the source interpretation reasonable and clear.Both PMF and FA-NNC were applied for source apportionment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediments of the Daliao River, Songhuajiang River, Yellow River, Huaihe River and Pearl River of China. The source profiles and source contributions derived from the two receptor models were comparable. The source apportionment results are compared with the results from the specific PAH diagnostic ratios, emission inventory analysis, principal component analysis, and so on.The source profiles derived from PMF and FA-NNC were almost the same. For sediments of Daliao River, PAHs mainly came from coal combustion (43.3%～50.4%), followed by biomass burning (21.9%～24.3%), traffic emissions (15.7%～16.7%) and coke oven (12.0%～15.7%). The source apportionment results are consistent with the structure of energy material usage in Liaoning province of China. As for sediments of Songhuajiang River, the main sources of PAHs were estimated to be oil combustion (26%～29%) and coal/biomass burning (71%～74%). For Henan reach of Yellow River, PAHs mainly came from coke oven (12.1%～13.8%), coal average (23.6%～31.6%), residential coal (17.4%～31.9%), biomass burning (11.7%～11.9%) and oil combustion (19.0%～20.0%). The sources of PAHs in sediments of Yellow River Delta were synthesis source (28.84%～34.70%), diesel engine (31.48%～32.16%), coal combustion (14.09%～21.59%) and biomass burning (17.41%～19.73%). For FA-NNC, PAHs in sediments of Huaihe River mainly came from coal combustion (67%), biomass burning (26%) and oil combustion (7%). And for PMF, coal combustion (61%) was dominant, followed by biomass burning (30%), oil combustion (5%) and other sources(4%). As for sediments of Pearl River Delta, four sources were obtained, the main sources of PAHs were estimated to be coal/biomass burning (39.1%～42.9%), traffic emissions (42.5%-46.6%) and synthesis source (14.3%～14.6%).