Determination of Levoglucosan in Particulate Matter Reference Materials

Abstract

Source identification is critical for the effective management of air pollution. The ratio of levoglucosan (1,6-anhydro-β-D-glucose) to organic carbon has been used to identify and quantify the contribution of biomass combustion to the organic carbon content in aerosols. Therefore, accurate levoglucosan measurements in particulate matter are important. This study determined levoglucosan concentrations in urban dust Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) 1649a and 1648 available from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as well as two particulate matter samples with particle sizes nominally 2.5 µm and smaller collected in Baltimore, MD. Levoglucosan was extracted using both pressurized fluid and Soxhlet techniques. Quantification was performed with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) using a deuterated levoglucosan internal standard and two different GC columns. Levoglucosan concentrations were 81.1 µg g −1 with a standard deviation of 9.4 µg g −1 (n = 9) for SRM 1649a, 107 µg g −1 with a standard deviation of 18 µg g −1 (n = 8) for SRM 1648, 225 µg g −1 (standard deviation of 41 µg g −1 n = 4) and 138 µg g −1 (standard deviation of 39 µg g −1 n = 5) for the two fine particulate matter samples collected in Baltimore, MD.

Methods for the determination of levoglucosan and other sugar anhydrides as biomass burning tracers in environmental samples – A review

“…Biomass is an organic matter, biological material that is derived from living or dead organisms, however, is mostly referred to plant‐based materials. Biomass burning in fireplaces, residential, and campfires as well as wildfires emits smoke which is a major source of soot, particulate matter (PM), free radicals, and other substances which can be toxic or mutagenic . Exposure to biomass burning smoke can cause health problems described by several epidemiological studies, such as irritation of eyes, nose and throat, increased infections in respiratory system, and decrements in lung function .…”

Determination of biomass burning tracers in air samples by GC/MS

“…Extraction could be conducted in Soxhlet apparatus [6,24] or by pressurized fluid extraction with an accelerated solvent extraction (PFE ASE) [6]. However the most popular extraction technique is extraction in ultrasonic bath in different solvents or its mixture [1,2,5,11,18,[25][26][27][28].…”

“…Biomass combustion in fireplaces, residential, campfires and wildfires emits wood smoke which is a main source of soot, particulate matter (PM), free radicals, irritants and other chemicals which can be toxic or mutagenic [1][2][3][4][5]. The atmospheric aerosol formed can scatter or absorb incoming solar radiation, change visibility impairments and modify cloud formation processes [6][7][8][9].…”

“…Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry detector (GC/MS) is usually use to determine the LG in wood smoke, PM, ashes, soil and sediment samples [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]23] but other techniques as high performance liquid chromatography with aerosol charge detection (HPLC-ACD), high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD) or capillary electrophoresis with pulsed amperometric detection (CE-PAD) are also applied. The GC determination of levoglucosan consist of extraction, derivatization -mainly based on silylation giving trimethylsilyl ether derivative to reduce its polarity, same increase its volatility and analysis.…”

An intercomparison study of analytical methods used for quantification of levoglucosan in ambient aerosol filter samples

“…Methods such as capillary electrophoresis with pulsed amperometric detection (CE-PAD) (Garcia et al, 2005), chloride attachment in liquid chromatography combined with negative ion electrospray mass spectrometry (Wan and Yu, 2007) and ion-exclusion highperformance liquid chromatography followed by spectroscopic detection (Schkolnik et al, 2005) have been reported in the scientific literature but do not seem to be widely applied to MA analysis. Gao et al (2003) were the first to report the use of electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) for quantification of MAs, and, at present, HPLC combined with mass spectrometric Larsen et al, 2006;Wan and Yu, 2007;Piot et al, 2012) or aerosol charge detection (HPLC-ACD) (Dixon and Baltzell, 2006) are widespread. HPAEC coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (PAD) (Engling et al, 2006;Caseiro et al, 2007;Iinuma et al, 2009;Piazzalunga et al, 2010) or with mass spectrometric detection (HPAEC-MS) (Saarnio et al, 2010b) have been employed more recently.…”