Occurrence of Pesticides Associated to Atmospheric Aerosols: Hazard and Cancer Risk Assessments

Since the 1950s, pesticides have been used in agriculture. The increase in their consumption has been observed in recent years. In this work, it was determined the concentration of pesticides in the atmosphere of São Paulo and Piracicaba cities (sugarcane plantation site) and the hazard quotients and cancer risk caused by inhalation of these compounds were calculated. Twenty-three samples were analyzed and 34 pesticides associated to atmospheric particulate matter (with diameter equal to or less than 2.5 (PM2.5) and 10 µm (PM10)) were investigated by gas chromatograpy-mass spectrometry (GC-M...