Resumen de REE minerals in roadside dusts of the Barcelona area: anthropogenic origin?
Robert Morera Valverde, Dídac Navarro Ciurana, Joaquin Antonio Proenza Fernández, Júlia Farré de Pablo, Núria Pujol Solà, Mercè Corbella i Cordomí
The growth of the population, industrial and commercial activities and vehicle traffic flow are the major causes of pollution in urban environments. Road dust is known to contain several pollutant heavy metals, as Rare Earth Elements (REE) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g., Aryal et al., 2010), which are the most harmful to human’s health and to the environment in urban systems (Saeedi et al., 2012).
Technological developments have dramatically increased the use of REEs in defence, aerospace, medical and automotive industries. Furthermore, REEs are classified as critical metals due to their high industrial applications and economic importance coupled to possible supply shortfalls (Goodenough et al., 2018). Among others, they are essential components of vehicle catalysts, highstrength magnets, super-alloys, display technology and lasers (Wall, 2013). The presence of these critical metals in the environment, as road dusts, has increased in the lasts decades. This has encouraged researchers to carry out geochemical studies to identify the anthropogenic sources of REEs in dust deposited on roads and tree leaves, as well as their potential use as fingerprints to evaluate the environmental impact (e.g., Amato et al., 2011; Shaltout et al., 2013). The main anthropogenic activities that contribute to the presence of REEs in roadside dust are vehicle exhaust emissions; degradation of catalysts and batteries, and vehicle tyres, brakes and bodywork wears (e.g., Shaltout et al., 2013 and references therein).
Accurate data on the mineralogy of the anthropogenic REE phases in road dusts from Spain, and also across de globe, are scarce so far (e.g., Varrica et al., 2002).
Therefore, we aim to provide preliminary data on the REE mineralogy of roadside dusts from Barcelona and surrounding roads, by means of a petrographic and geochemical characterization, including the investigation of other heavy mineral concentrates.
