Incense, sparklers and cigarettes are significant contributors to indoor benzene and particle levels

Introduction. The increased use of incense, magic candles and other flameless products often produces indoor pollutants that may represent a health risk for humans. Today, in fact, incense and air fresheners are used inside homes as well as in public places including stores, shopping malls and places of worship. As a source of indoor contamination, the impact of smoke, incense and sparklers on human health cannot be ignored. Aim. In the present work, we report the results of an emission study regarding particles (PM10 and particle number concentration, PNC) and benzene, produced by various incense sticks and sparklers. Results and discussion.The results obtained for benzene, PM10 and PNC, showed a strong negative influence on air quality when these products were used indoors. Various incense sticks gave completely different benzene results: from a small increase of the benzene concentration in the air, just slightly above the background levels of ambient air, to very high concentrations, of more than 200 µg/m³ of benzene in the test room after the incense sticks had been tested

Wind profiles from Doppler Wind-LiDAR during the field campaign of the Bolzano Tracer EXperiment (BTEX)

During BTEX a Doppler Wind–LIDAR (WindCube 100S, manufactured by Leosphere, France) was installed in the Bolzano basin (46.498192 N, 11.364963 E, 267 m ASL) on the roof of a public building at 18 m AGL. The Wind-LIDAR provided every 5 s the vertical profiles of the wind speed components, measured by means of the Doppler Beam Swinging (DBS) technique. In particular, each profile is composed of 110 vertical levels, one every 10 m, from 50 m above the Wind–LIDAR (i.e. 335 m ASL) to 1100 m (i.e. 1385 m ASL). In addition to the vertical profiles of the wind speed components, the Wind–LIDAR also provided the Carrier–to– Noise Ratio profile, corresponding to the ratio of the power of the received signal to the noise powe

Emission discharge and emission temperature of the incinerator during the field campaign of the Bolzano Tracer EXperiment (BTEX)

This dataset contains information concerning the incinerator and its working conditions, i.e. the coordinates and the height of the stack, along with the discharge and temperature of the emissions. The data set covers a period of 24 h, from 2017-02-14 00:00 [UTC+1] to 2017-02-15 00:00 [UTC+1], with a time resolution of 30 min. In particular, each row in the file provides the 30 min–average of the corresponding quantity, and the time–stamp refers to the end of the averaging period. The data provided in the data set were collected from the daily reports of the incinerator, that can also be freely downloaded from the web page of the company operating the plant, eco center S.p.A.: https://www.eco-center.it/it/attivita-servizi/ambiente/impianti/impianto-di-termovalorizzazione/reports/reports-giornalieri-795.htm

Temperature profiles during the field campaign of the Bolzano Tracer EXperiment (BTEX)

Temperature profiles were measured by means of a MTP-5HE passive microwave radiometer, manifactured by Attex (Russia). The MTP-5HE is installed in the airfield of Bolzano (46.459843 N, 11.323169 E, 238 m ASL) on the roof of a building 12 m high. The device was operated so as to provide every 10 min the vertical profile of the temperature with a maximum range of 1000 m and with a vertical resolution of 50 m. Temperature profiles are provided by the Physical Chemistry Laboratory of the Environmental Protection Agency of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (http://www.provincia.bz.it/it/contatti.asp?orga_orgaid=882)

Meteorological observations of ground weather stations during the field campaign of the Bolzano Tracer EXperiment (BTEX)

Meteorological observations from the ground weather stations are provided as 10-min averages. The time-stamp refers to the end of the averaging period. Data collected by the ground weather stations can be also freely downloaded from the open data web-service of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (http://dati.retecivica.bz.it/it/group/weather)

Wind profiles of MFAS mini-SODAR during the field campaign of the Bolzano Tracer EXperiment (BTEX)

During BTEX a MFAS mini–SODAR (manufactured by Scintec, Germany) was installed on the roof of the incinerator of Bolzano (46.468463 N, 11.308782 E, 245 m ASL) at 40 m AGL. In particular, the SODAR was installed close to the chimney of the incinerator, in order to monitor the wind field at the outlet of the stack, where emissions are released into the atmosphere. The SODAR investigated an atmospheric layer 400 m-deep along 38 10 m-spaced vertical levels. Indeed, the lowest datum is provided at 30 m above the antenna, i.e. 70 m AGL and 315 m ASL, whereas the highest one is provided at 400 m above the antenna, i.e. 685 m ASL. Actually, at each vertical level, the SODAR provides a measure averaged over an atmospheric layer 30 m–thick and centered at the elevation of the level. Raw data were processed by means of the software APRun, provided by Scintec, in order to obtain the vertical profiles of: 1. mean wind quantities, i.e. wind speed components, wind intensity, wind direction; 2. standard deviations of the wind speed components; 3. back scatter. Due to the environmental noise affecting the site, raw data were processed and averaged over a time–window of 30 min, in order to obtain reliable profiles of the above quantities. The time-stamp refers to the end of the averaging period