Revising the use of potassium (K) in the source apportionment of PM2.5

Pachón, Jorge E.; Weber, R. J.; Zhang, Xiaolu; Mulholland, James A.; Russell, Armistead G.

doi:10.5094/apr.2013.002

Cited by 137 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Such behaviour most likely reflects contributions from biomass burning over the entire year (Schmidl et al, 2008;Pachon et al, 2013). For both Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ ions, clear monomodal mass distributions with maxima in the 1.6 to 2.39 µm size range were observed over the investigated period.…”

Section: Relative Ionic Contribution In Size-resolved Aerosolmentioning

confidence: 83%

Chemical characteristics of size-resolved atmospheric aerosols in Iasi, north-eastern Romania: nitrogen-containing inorganic compounds control aerosol chemistry in the area

2018

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Abstract. This study assesses the effects of particle size and season on the content of the major inorganic and organic aerosol ionic components in the Iasi urban area, north-eastern Romania. Continuous measurements were carried out over 2016 using a cascade Dekati low-pressure impactor (DLPI) performing aerosol size classification in 13 specific fractions over the 0.0276-9.94 µm size range. Fine-particulate Cl − , NO − 3 , NH + 4 , and K + exhibited clear minima during the warm season and clear maxima over the cold season, mainly due to trends in emission sources, changes in the mixing layer depth and specific meteorological conditions. Fine-particulate SO 2− 4 did not show much variation with respect to seasons. Particulate NH + 4 and NO − 3 ions were identified as critical parameters controlling aerosol chemistry in the area, and their measured concentrations in fine-mode (PM 2.5 ) aerosols were found to be in reasonable good agreement with modelled values for winter but not for summer. The likely reason is that NH 4 NO 3 aerosols are lost due to volatility over the warm season. We found that NH + 4 in PM 2.5 is primarily associated with SO 2− 4 and NO − 3 but not with Cl − . Actually, indirect ISORROPIA-II estimations showed that the atmosphere in the Iasi area might be ammonia rich during both the cold and warm seasons, enabling enough NH 3 to be present to neutralize H 2 SO 4 , HNO 3 , and HCl acidic components and to generate fine-particulate ammonium salts, in the form of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 , NH 4 NO 3 , and NH 4 Cl. ISORROPIA-II runs allowed us to estimate that over the warm season ∼ 35 % of the total analysed samples had very strongly acidic pH (0-3), a fraction that rose to ∼ 43 % over the cold season. Moreover, while in the cold season the acidity is mainly accounted for by inorganic acids, in the warm ones there is an important contribution by other compounds, possibly organic. Indeed, changes in aerosol acidity would most likely impact the gasparticle partitioning of semi-volatile organic acids. Overall, we estimate that within the aerosol mass concentration the ionic mass brings a contribution as high as 40.6 %, with the rest still being unaccounted for.

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Section: Relative Ionic Contribution In Size-resolved Aerosolmentioning

confidence: 83%

Chemical characteristics of size-resolved atmospheric aerosols in Iasi, north-eastern Romania: nitrogen-containing inorganic compounds control aerosol chemistry in the area

2018

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“…United States emission inventories of PM 2.5 trace elements revealed that agricultural soil and unpaved road dust emit much larger quantities of Ba on a national basis (Reff et al, 2009). K was involved in F2 as it consists in dust as well (Pachon et al, 2013). F3 was defined as charcoal burning with moderate Cr, Rb, and K loadings.…”

Section: Metalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of PM2.5 emitted from different cooking activities in China

Shu

et al. 2015

Atmospheric Research

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“…As levoglucosan concentrations were not measured in this study, biomass burning emissions -which include contributions from pellet and wood heating, agricultural activities and forest fires -were characterised by other inorganic elements/compounds, mainly potassium salts (KCl, K 2 SO 4 and KNO 3 ), metals (Zn, Pb) and refractory compounds including Ca, Mg and Si. Actually, the use of K could be disadvantageous because it has multiple source emissions (Pachon et al, 2013) and the availability of levoglucosan could have been more helpful to better resolve the contributions from biomass burning reducing the interference from other sources. Since K emitted from biomass burning is water-soluble while K from mineral dust is not, the K + ion water-soluble fraction measured by ion chromatography (IC) could represent a suitable marker for biomass burning emissions especially in fine aerosol fractions (Reche et al, 2012).…”

Section: Base Run Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%