Sources apportionment of total suspended particles at a coastal city in france

The elemental composition of TSP collected upon different wind sectors in the highly industrialized harbor of Dunkirk (France) were measured and the data was interpreted using a Non Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) receptor model. Our objective was to identify the possible sources of TSP and to determine their relative contribution at the sampling site. We decided to carry out a daily sampling campaign at a fixed site and a sufficiently long period, i.e. 3 months, from February to May 2008. Different weather conditions have been met during this period and samples have been collected under marine influences, industrial and urban. The physicochemical analysis was focused on the inorganic fraction of the particles.  TSP were collected in order to analyze 19 elements: Al, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, Sn, Ti,  V, Zn Cl, NO3-, SO42-, NH4+. Ion chromatography (IC) and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) were used to obtain the concentration of different water soluble anions and elements respectively. Nine sources factor were determined by NMF for all wind sectors. It showed that 9 sources contributed to the ambient particulate pollution at the sampling site: 4 background sources and 5 industrial sources.