In this study, the ambient aerosol (PM₁₀) concentrations of elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), total carbon (TC), and levoglucosan are reported for a Polish health resort following a one-year (March 2016–April 2017) sampling campaign. The seasonal variation of OC, EC, and levoglucosan (LG) concentrations showed their maximum during the heating season for this site, with monthly mean total carbonaceous material/PM₁₀ ratios ranging between about 0.28 and 0.44 depending on the season. Average EC concentration was 1.1 ± 0.6 µg∙m⁻³ and changed from 0.3 µg∙m⁻³ up to 2.3 µg∙m⁻³ during the sampling campaign. The OC concentration at the site ranged from 2.4 µg∙m⁻³ during the non-heating season up to 22 µg∙m⁻³ in the heating season, with an average of 7 µg∙m⁻³. A strong correlation between OC and EC in the heating season suggested that they were produced from similar sources during this time. Mean LG concentration during the sampling campaign was 0.51 µg∙m⁻³, while in the heating season it was 0.72 µg∙m⁻³ and in 0.19 µg∙m⁻³ in the non-heating season. The obtained results indicated a strong influence of local primary source emissions on air quality, especially during the heating period.

The paper presents two methods for determination of phthalates in polymer materials. The methods compared were gas chromatography combined with the mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography with electron capture detector (GC/ECD). The GC/ECD technique was chosen for this comparison, because the ECD detector was one of few capable of detecting phthalates. In both cases the same procedure of sample preparation with ultrasonic extraction was applied. Overall recoveries were 76-100 % with relative of standard deviation (R.S.D.) values in the range 0.6-19 %. The values of limit of detection (LOD) for GC/MS method ranged from 3.46 µg mL- 1 to 10.10 µg mL- 1, depending on the determined phthalate, while in case of the GC/ECD method they were in the range from 2.97 µg mL- 1 to 4.29 µg mL- 1. The methods were applied for determination of: dimethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, di-n-butyl phthalate, benzyl butyl phthalate, bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, diisononyl phthalate, diisoocyl phthalate in polymer material. The seventeen kinds of samples were analyzed. Most of the materials selected for the analyses were made from polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene (PS)

Biomass burning is one source of air pollution that emits soot, smoke, particulate matter, free radicals and other substances, affecting human health, air quality, cloud formation processes and climate change. During biomass burning, organic biomass burning tracers are emitted, such as levoglucosan and its isomers mannosan and galactosan, which are formed at temperatures above 300 °C during cellulose and hemicellulose pyrolysis. The objective of this research is the measurement of biomass burning tracer concentrations in PM₁₀ samples in Krynica during two winter seasons from 01.12.2017 to 31.03.2018 and from 01.12.2018 to 26.03.2019. The average concentrations of organic carbon were 9.48 μg/m³ in the 2017/2018 season and 8.79 μg/m³ in the 2018/2019 season. The average concentration of levoglucosan in the PM₁₀ samples in 2017/2018 was 137 ng/m³, while in 2018/2019, the average concentration reached 245 ng/m³. Levoglucosan was the dominant compound among the determined biomass burning tracers, accounting for 88.6% in 2017/2018 and 72.4% in 2018/2019. The conducted measurements show that the levoglucosan to mannosan ratio was equal to 10.5 and 3.9 in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, respectively. The biomass smoke organic carbon was approximately 10.6% in 2017/2018 and 20.5% in 2018/2019. These results correspond to the contribution of biomass smoke to organic carbon, which was equal to 14.4% and 28.4% in the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons, respectively.

The major biomass burning tracers are thermal degradation products from the biopolymer cellulose, namely the didehydromonosaccharide derivatives levoglucosan, galactosan, and mannosan and the resin acid derivative dehydroabietic acid, with a minor contribution from β-sitosterol. Levoglucosan, galactosan, and mannosan were measured at two sites in Silesia, a rural (Rokitno) and industry region (Zabrze), during the winter of 2017/2018. The results showed that mean concentrations of the total tracers determined were 737 ng/m³ for Zabrze and 465 ng/m³ for Rokitno. Levoglucosan was the most abundant tracer; it was 83.2% of the determined tracers in Zabrze and 78.1% in Rokitno. The relative proportions of levoglucosan to mannosan have been used for source reconstruction of combustion-derived byproducts in atmospheric aerosols. The levoglucosan to mannosan ratio for Zabrze was 8.9 and for Rokitno 5.3; the levoglucosan to sum of mannosan and galactosan ratio was 6.2 and 3.8 for Zabrze and Rokitno, respectively. The correlation between tracers is high (0.73 to 0.97) and shows linearity. In order to compare the fuel type (by the coefficient of divergence (CD)) between different sites, the results from a previous work in health resort Krynica were used. The CD between Krynica and Rokitno as well as Krynica and Zabrze was equal to 0.633 and 0.712, respectively. The CD between Rokitno and Zabrze was equal to 0.175. Despite the biomass burning tracer measurements are mostly local, they have a huge impact on air pollution and climate changes.