Journal: Environmental Contaminants Reviews (ECR)
Author: Haroon Rashid, Ch. Arslan, Shahbaz Nasir Khan

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Doi: 10.26480/ecr.01.2026.31.39

ABSTRACT
Air pollution exposure in school environments poses significant health risks to children, yet source-specific contributions to PM25-bound PAHs in indoor settings remain poorly characterized in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims to identify and quantify emission sources of PM25-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the indoor micro-environment of urban schools using integrated multivariate statistical techniques. Sixteen priority PAHs were measured in PM2.5 samples collected from 15 schools in four local government areas, Benin City, Nigeria. Principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used for source apportionment. PCA extracted three principal components, which explained 89.5-97.6% of the total variance. The source contribution of PM25-bound PAHs was mainly anthropogenic, with vehicular emissions and industrial combustion accounting for 60-70% and 15-25% of the total PAH, respectively. The significant seasonal variations reflect meteorological conditions and source activity patterns.

KEYWORDS
Source apportionment, PAHs, PM25, Emission sources, Seasonal variation