Monitoring of the Surface Ozone Concentrations in the Western Banat Region

Abstract

This paper presents the results of measuring the concentrations of ozone, VOCs (benzene, toluene, m- and p-xylene, o-xylene and ethylbenzene), nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2 and NOx), CO, H2S, SO2 and PM10 in the ambient air in parallel with recording the meteorological parameters: temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction during the year 2009. The measurements were performed at the measuring station located within an agricultural area near the city of Zrenjanin (Serbian Banat, Serbia). The results are presented in this paper as average values in winter and summer vs. time of day, and as average daily values vs. measurement date. Several correlations of the ozone concentration vs. atmospheric observables were made, together with Principal Component Analysis. The statistical analysis of the obtained data, based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA), led to result that 80.87 % of the variance in the measured values could be described with five factors. A high level of intercorrelation of VOCs, NOx and CO was determined. These pollutants were all grouped in factor 1, which described 42.85 % of variances of the measured values. According to the VOCs/NOx and VOCs/CO ratios (which were 0.26 and 0.029, respectively), it was determined that production of tropospheric ozone is a VOCs sensitive process for the investigated region.