selected organic compounds in fine particulatematter at the regional background, urban background and urbantraffic points in silesia (poland)

suspended particles with aerodynamic diameters not greater than 2.5 μm (pm2.5) were sampledat the urban background, regional background and urban traffic points in southern poland. in total, 120 sampleswere collected between 2nd august 2009 and 27th december 2010. 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs)and organic carbon (oc) were determined in each sample. the samples were collected with a high volumesampler (digitel). afterwards, they were chemically analysed with a gas chromatograph equipped with a flameionization detector (perkin elmer clarus 500) and thermo-optical carbon analyser (sunset laboratory inc.).overthe whole measurement period, the mean concentrations of the sum of 16 pm2.5-bound pahs and particularcompounds within this group were very high at each measurement point. particularly high values were observedfor the heating season, in which the concentrations of the pah sum and bap exceeded 56 and 7 ng/m3 (regionalbackground), 343 and 25 ng/m3 (urban background), and 166 and 14 ng/m3 (urban traffic), respectively. it wasshowed that the emission related to heat production, particularly municipal emission (coal combustion in homefurnaces in cities and coal and wood combustion in the countryside) were the main sources of the air pollutionwith pahs in silesia.additionally, the traffic emission had probablya slight influence on the ambient concentrationsof the pm2.5-bound pahs.