Polyols and glucose particulate species as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosols at 28 French sites

Abstract

A growing number of studies are using specific primary sugar species, such as sugar alcohols or primary saccharides, as marker compounds to characterize and apportion primary biogenic organic aerosols (PBOAs) in the atmosphere. To better understand their annual cycles, as well as their spatiotemporal abundance in terms of concentrations and sources, we conducted a large study focusing on three major atmospheric primary sugar compounds (i.e., arabitol, mannitol, and glucose) measured in various environmental conditions for about 5300 filter samples collected at 28 sites in France. Our results show significant atmospheric concentrations of polyols (defined here as the sum of arabitol and mannitol) and glucose at each sampling location, highlighting their ubiquity. Results also confirm that polyols and glucose are mainly associated with the coarse rather than the fine aerosol mode. At nearly all sites, atmospheric concentrations of polyols and glucose display a well-marked seasonal pattern, with maximum concentrations from late spring to early autumn, followed by an abrupt decrease in late autumn, and a minimum concentration during wintertime. Such seasonal patterns support biogenic emissions associated with higher biological metabolic activities (sporulation, growth, etc.) during warmer periods. Results from a previous comprehensive study using positive matrix factorization (PMF)Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3358 A. Samaké et al.: Polyols and glucose particulate speciesbased on an extended aerosol chemical composition dataset of up to 130 species for 16 of the same sample series have also been used in the present work. The polyols-to-PM PBOA ratio is 0.024 ± 0.010 on average for all sites, with no clear distinction between traffic, urban, or rural typology. Overall, even if the exact origin of the PBOA source is still under investigation, it appears to be an important source of particulate matter (PM), especially during summertime. Results also show that PBOAs are significant sources of total organic matter (OM) in PM 10 (13 ± 4 % on a yearly average, and up to 40 % in some environments in summer) at most of the investigated sites. The mean PBOA chemical profile is clearly dominated by contribution from OM (78±9 % of the mass of the PBOA PMF on average), and only a minor contribution from the dust class (3±4 %), suggesting that ambient polyols are most likely associated with biological particle emissions (e.g., active spore discharge) rather than soil dust resuspension.

Arabitol, mannitol, and glucose as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosol: the influence of environmental factors on ambient air concentrations and spatial distribution over France

“…These values are comparable to those previ-11022 A. Samaké et al: Arabitol, mannitol, and glucose as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosol ously reported for various sites in Europe (Daellenbach et al, 2017;Sánchez-Ochoa et al, 2007;Vlachou et al, 2018;Yttri et al, 2011b). Thus, a major part of PBOA could possibly be ascribed to cellulose and SC-derived sources.…”

“…Therefore, only the "free cellulose" is reported in our samples. Note that Sánchez-Ochoa et al (2007) consider that this free cellulose could represent only about 70 % of the total cellulose in air samples and that the total cellulose could represent only about 50 % of the "plant debris" content of atmospheric PM. Very few other results are available on this topic (Bozzetti et al, 2016;Glasius et al, 2018;Vlachou et al, 2018;Yttri et al, 2011b).…”

“…Cellulose, a linear polymer composed of D-glucopyranose units linked by β-1,4 bonds, is the most frequent polysaccharide occurring in terrestrial environments (Ramoni and Seiboth, 2016). Plant materials contain cellulose, which has been reported as a suitable proxy to evaluate the vegetative debris contribution to OM mass (Bozzetti et al, 2016;Daellenbach et al, 2017;Glasius et al, 2018;Hiranuma et al, 2019;Puxbaum and Tenze-Kunit, 2003;Sánchez-Ochoa et al, 2007;Yttri et al, 2011b). The ambient PM 10 cellulose has been shown to be abundant in the European semirural or background environments (accounting for 2 % to 10 % of OM mass) (Glasius et al, 2018;Sánchez-Ochoa et al, 2007) and Nordic rural environments in Norway (contributing to 12 % to 18 % of total carbon mass) (Yttri et al, 2011b).…”

Characterization of Aerosol Physical and Optical Properties at the Observatoire Pérenne de l’Environnement (OPE) Site

“…The contrast between seasonal variation in particle number concentrations and that of EBC would suggest, as for the N 10-550 concentrations, that there are additional particle sources in the warm seasons originated from other processes than combustion. Samaké et al, (2019) [47], at 28 French sites (including the OPE site), showed higher concentrations of primary biogenic organic aerosols: polyols (sum of arabitol and mannitol) and glucose, which are mainly associated with the coarse mode, during the warmer seasons compared to colder seasons. Another source of these high concentrations in warm seasons could also be related to the abrasion of leaves and the subsequent release of microbial organisms and plant debris [48,49] and long-range transport of large particles from distant sources.…”

“…The study of the origin of EBC (FF or BB), discussed before, also suggests a dominant contribution from anthropogenic activities, represented here by the FF combustion related to traffic. For particles in the size range 1.15-4.5 µm, there is a visible contribution of local sources of primary emissions due to local agricultural practices [47] and of marine aerosol. Samaké et al, (2019) [47] showed higher concentrations of primary biogenic organic aerosols, which are mainly associated with the coarse mode.…”