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GSA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA - 2018

Paper No. 149-1
Presentation Time: 8:00 AM

TIRE-WEAR PARTICLES AS A MAJOR COMPONENT OF MICROPLASTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT


GIERÉ, Reto1, SOMMER, Frank2, DIETZE, Volker3, BAUM, Anja4, GILGE, Stefan3, SAUER, Jan4 and MASCHOWSKI, Christoph2, (1)Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Hayden Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316, (2)Institute for Geo- and Environmental Natural Sciences, Universität Freiburg, Albertstr. 23b, Freiburg, 79104, Germany, (3)Air Quality Department, Research Center Human Biometeorology, German Meteorological Service, Stefan-Meier-Str. 4, Freiburg, 79104, Germany, (4)Federal Highway Research Institute, Bergisch Gladbach, 51427, Germany

Particulate matter (PM) pollution in urban areas not only affects morbidity and mortality, but also vegetation and ecosystems. A series of measures succeeded in reducing exhaust emissions from traffic, but this is not the case for brake-, tire-, and road-wear particles. Tire-wear particles are a dominant component of the microplastics that pollute rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Our study focuses on non-exhaust airborne particles in the super-coarse mode (PM10-80) generated by traffic along highly frequented German roads with different traffic mode and vehicle velocities. Particles were analyzed individually by automated transmitted-light microscopy (TLM). Our TLM method allows for the determination of a number particle settling rate of the “total” atmospheric particle load, with subsequent calculation of the total ambient aerosol mass concentration [1]. It also allows for the differentiation by particle type (e.g., opaque vs. transparent) and size, which is then used to calculate the size-fractionated mass concentration of these particles [2].

To obtain additional details on the particles (size, shape, volume, chemical composition) we further used SEM-EDX, which enabled us to clearly distinguish between the different types of non-exhaust traffic particles as well as those from other sources. Our SEM-EDX results for more than 500 particles revealed that along busy roads, >90 vol% of all PM10-80 consists of materials produced through the abrasion of tires, road surface and brakes. Once deposited on the road surface, tire-abrasion particles develop an encrustment of varying magnitude, which itself consists of particles derived from the wearing course, brakes and brake pads, and of other road dust. Tire-derived microplastics, thus, not only consist of the original rubber core with its various chemical additives but also of potentially hazardous metals and metalloids contained in the attached brake-abrasion particles. These additional materials present in the encrustment, thus, increase the potential of environmental damage resulting from tire-wear particles.

References

[1] VDI 2119 (2013) ICS: 13.040.01. Beuth Verlag, Berlin.

[2] Dietze et al. (2006) Gefahrstoffe - Reinhaltung der Luft (Air Quality Control) 66.

Session No. 149

T15. Urban Geochemistry
Tuesday, 6 November 2018: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Room 135 (Indiana Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 50, No. 6
doi: 10.1130/abs/2018AM-319219
© Copyright 2018 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.
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