Variability of the elemental composition of airborne mineral dust along the coast of Central Tunisia

Saad, Mohamed; Masmoudi, M.; Chevaillier, Servanne; Bouchet, L.; Lafon, S.; Alfaro, Stéphane C.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2018.04.001

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 45 publications

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“…In the past few years, several studies have addressed different aspects of atmospheric aerosols in the African side of the Mediterranean region, such as spatio-temporal variations [23][24][25], chemical characterization [11,26,27], and aerosol transport pathways [28][29][30][31]. However, regarding studies on both the western and eastern Mediterranean, the southwestern (SW) Mediterranean is relatively understudied with a clear lack of investigations addressing chemical characterization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosols in Northern Morocco-2: Chemical Characterization and PMF Source Apportionment of Ambient PM2.5

et al. 2022

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Insufficient data on the chemical composition of PM2.5 and its emission sources in the southwestern (SW) Mediterranean area has been identified. Ambient PM2.5 samples were collected in an urban area of Tetouan city, northern Morocco. Chemical mass closure calculations and positive matrix factorization were performed for the comprehensive dataset of PM2.5 chemical analyses. Mass closure improved when multipliers (1.2 and 0.23, respectively) were used for the conversion of organic carbon (OC) and calcium ion (Ca2+) into particulate organic matter (POM) and mineral dust masses, respectively. The mass closure model performed well in this SW Mediterranean region, with a significant correlation (r2 = 0.97) obtained between gravimetrically measured and chemically determined PM2.5 mass. The one-year average concentration of PM2.5 was 17.96 μg/m3, and the major chemical components were POM (34%), secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA) (28%), and black carbon (18%), while unidentified mass was 4%. The mass concentration and most of the chemical components of PM2.5 showed clear seasonal variations, with a summer-high and winter-low pattern for SIA, dust, and BC. In the winter months, POM was the dominant component. Source apportionment analysis revealed that PM2.5 emission sources, regarding their typical tracers, were ammonium sulfate (SO42−, NH4+, K+, NO3−), road traffic and biomass burning emissions (OC, BC), fresh sea salt (Cl−, K+, NO3−), aged sea salt (Mg2+, Na+, Ca2+), and oxalate-rich (oxalate, NO3−) factors. Further, it is hoped that these findings help to improve the scientific understanding of SW Mediterranean aerosols.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosols in Northern Morocco-2: Chemical Characterization and PMF Source Apportionment of Ambient PM2.5

et al. 2022

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Elemental ratios as tracers of the sources of mineral dust in north-eastern Sahara

Boraiy,

El-Metwally,

Borbon

et al. 2023

Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.

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The objective of this study is to confirm the possibility of tracing sources of airborne mineral dust using elemental ratios. The region of study is the north-eastern part of the Sahara where dust compositional data were lacking; 272 mineral dust samples collected at 3 experimental stations of Egypt were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence. Based on the mineral dust concentration, 65% of the samples correspond to moderate (3–10 μg m−3), 22% to medium (10–25 μg m−3), and 13% to intense (> 25 μg m−3) dust events. The Ca/Al and (Mg + Ca)/Fe ratios were found to be strongly correlated and their ranges of variation to cover are more than one order of magnitude, which confirms their interest for the tracing of the dust sources. Using a combination of MODIS satellite observations, HYSPLIT back-trajectory analysis, and simulations with dust emission models, the large (> 6) and intermediate (2–6) Ca/Al ratios were shown to correspond to dust originating from saline playas (chotts) and calcareous surfaces, respectively. Conversely, the lowest (< 2) ratios correspond to dust emitted by siliceous sand seas (ergs). Therefore, a classification of the dust in 3 categories (erg-like, calcareous, and chott-like) based on Ca/Al is proposed. The events of moderate to medium intensity are dominated by chott-like and calcareous dust, which suggests that these sources are activated during erosion events of limited (local) extension. Conversely, the fact that the dust composition is more likely to be of the erg-like type during intense events underlines the dominant role played by sand dune fields during major erosion events.

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On the chemical nature of wet deposition over a major desiccated lake: Case study for Lake Urmia basin

Ahmady‐Birgani

Ravan

Schlosser

et al. 2020

Atmospheric Research

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Variability of the elemental composition of airborne mineral dust along the coast of Central Tunisia

Cited by 5 publications

References 45 publications

Aerosols in Northern Morocco-2: Chemical Characterization and PMF Source Apportionment of Ambient PM2.5

Aerosols in Northern Morocco-2: Chemical Characterization and PMF Source Apportionment of Ambient PM2.5

Elemental ratios as tracers of the sources of mineral dust in north-eastern Sahara

On the chemical nature of wet deposition over a major desiccated lake: Case study for Lake Urmia basin

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