Assessment of the PM characteristics and health risk of heavy metals from household solid fuel combustion on a plateau via multiscale particle analysis.
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The elevated incidence of lung cancer in Xuanwei, China, has been linked to emissions from solid fuel combustion. However, the combined impacts of plateau hypoxia and unique emission characteristics of rural residential environments remain inadequately studied. This study conducted continuous monitoring over eight consecutive days (8 h per day) during both summer and winter in rural households of Xuanwei. Indoor particulate matters (PM), including heavy metals (HMs), organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and water-soluble ions (WSIIs), were analyzed across nine size ranges. The averaged total indoor PM concentrations were 990.13 μg/m3 for wood combustion and 757.47 μg/m3 for coal combustion, significantly higher than levels in non-combustion households, with fine PM dominating. The secondary organic carbon to organic carbon (SOC/OC) ratio exceeded those typically reported for non-plateau regions. Wood combustion generated elevated concentrations of OC and EC in 0.4-0.7 μm size range. Coal combustion produced high concentrations of HMs in particles smaller than 0.4 μm. The Health Risk assessments revealed that the deposition in the alveolar region accounted for 56.34 % of PM< 1.1 μm. Notably, children faced a greater carcinogenic risk (1.21 ×10-4) compared to adults (7.76 ×10-5), predominantly driven by arsenic (As) and chromium (Cr) exposure from coal combustion.