Table 1.

List of pollutants responsible for airborne transmission of SAR-CoV-2.

Name of the pollutant	Source	Effects	Refs.
Large virus-laden aerosol (> 5 µm)	Coughing/sneezing	They remain a shorter time in the air and mostly deposited on gravitational settling	[51]
Small virus-laden aerosol (< 5 µm)	Respiration/speech	They remain in the air for a longer time and eventually dispersed by winds	[51]
		They are quickly dispersed and re-circulated in restricted places with poor ventilation (hospitals, quarantine zones, dining area, kitchen area, washroom)	[8]
VOCs (xylene, toluene)	Oil industry, Fuel-based vehicles	Causes long-term health effects like asthma, nasal tumors, tracheal, bronchial and lung cancer, leukemia	[72], [73], [239]
Particulate matters (PM2.5 & PM10)	Industries, stubble burning, transportation, power plants, construction sites, coke oven battery, fly ash and cement dust	Causes carcinogenic effect to human lungs and respiratory system by penetrating the alveolar epithelium	[111], [145], [240]
CO	Automobile and transport exhaust	Toxicity leads to the reduction of hemoglobin in human blood	[111], [145]
CO2	Household and greenhouse gaseous emission	Related to particulate emission (PM10, PM2.5) and causes respiratory system imbalance	[11], [42], [80], [241]
SOX, H2S	Acid production plant, primary industrial hazard
NOX, NH3	Burning of agricultural wastes, incineration of municipal solid waste, research laboratory usage, gaseous emission from anaerobic digestor, septic tank, toilet complex	Causes respiratory tract infection and red blood cell deformability	[11], [43], [111], [242]