Abstract Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) molecular diagnostic ratios (MDRs) are
unitless concentration ratios of pair-PAHs with the same molecular weight (MW); MDRs have
long been used as a tool for PAHs source identification purposes. In the present paper, the
efficiency of the MDR methodology is evaluated through the use of a multimedia fate model,
the calculation of characteristic travel distances (CTD) and the estimation of air
concentrations for individual PAHs as a function of distance from an initial point source. The …

Levoglucosan (LG) and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic substances
emitted from variety of anthropogenic sources, mainly as a result of incomplete combustion
or pyrolysis of organic material. The seasonality of PAHs emissions is a well demonstrated
fact, observed in most monitoring studies, where PAHs air concentrations in winter are much
higher than their respective in the summer, due to seasonally variable emission sources.
Various techniques have been proposed as ideal source identification (or apportionment) …