Par­ti­cu­late mat­ter (PM) depo­si­ted on Pla­ta­nus ace­ri­fo­lia­tree leaves has been sam­pled in the urban areas of 28 Euro­pean cities,over 20 coun­tries, with the aim of tes­ting leaf depo­si­ted par­ticles asin­di­ca­tor of atmos­phe­ric PM concen­tra­tion and com­po­si­tion. Lea­ve­shave been col­lec­ted close to streets cha­rac­te­ri­zed by hea­vy traf­fic and­wi­thin urban parks. Leaf sur­face den­si­ty, dimen­sions, and ele­men­tal­com­po­si­tion of leaf depo­si­ted par­ticles have been com­pa­red with leaf­ma­gne­tic content, and dis­cus­sed in connec­tion with air qua­li­ty data. ThePM quan­ti­ty and size were main­ly dependent on the regio­nal­back­ground concen­tra­tion of par­ticles, while the per­cen­tage of iron­ba­sed­par­ticles emer­ged as a clear mar­ker of traf­fic-rela­ted pol­lu­tion inmost of the sites. This indi­cates that Pla­ta­nus ace­ri­fo­lia is high­ly sui­ta­ble­to be used in atmos­phe­ric PM moni­to­ring stu­dies and that­mor­pho­lo­gi­cal and ele­men­tal cha­rac­te­ris­tics of leaf depo­si­ted par­ticles, joi­ned with the leaf magne­tic content, may suc­cess­ful­lyal­low urban PM source apportionment.

Chia­ra Bal­dac­chi­ni†, Ana Cas­tan­hei­ro‡, Nai­ru­hi Magha­kyan§, Gre­go­rio Sgri­gna†, Jolien Verhel­st‡, Rocío Alon­so∥, Jorge H. Amo­rim⊥+, Patrick Bel­lan#, Dani­je­la Đuni­si­je­vić Bojović&, Jür­gen Breuste∇, Oli­ver Büh­ler○, Ilie C. Cân­tar◆, Palo­ma Cariña­nos¶, Giu­lia Car­rie­ro∞, Gali­na Chur­ki­na⊗, Lucian Din­ca◆, Raf­fae­la Espo­si­to†, Sta­nisław W. Gawrońs­ki□, Maren Kern∏, Didier Le Thiec∂, Mar­co Moret­tiℏ, Tine Nin­gal⋈, Ele­ni C. Rant­zou­di☼, Iztok Sin­jur◑, Bil­ja­na Sto­ja­no­va⌀, Mira Aničić Uroše­vić☆, Vio­le­ta Veli­ko­vaÅ, Iva­na Živojinović@, Lilit Saha­kyan§, Car­lo Cal­fa­pie­tra*† , and Roe­land Samson‡

DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b04052