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European Geosciences Union, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 6(13), p. 3087-3096, 2013

DOI: 10.5194/acp-13-3087-2013

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Heated submicron particle fluxes using an optical particle counter in urban environment

Journal article published in 2013 by M. Vogt, C. Johansson, Monica Mårtensson, H. Struthers, L. Ahlm, D. Nilsson ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

From May 2008 to March 2009 aerosol emissions were measured using the eddy covariance method covering the size range 0.25 to 2.5 µm diameter (D p) from a 105 m tower, in central Stockholm, Sweden. Supporting chemical aerosol data were collected at roof and street level. Results show that the inorganic fraction of sulfate, nitrate, ammo-nium and sea salt accounts for approximately 15 % of the total aerosol mass < 1 µm D p (PM 1) with water soluble soil contributing 11 % and water insoluble soil 47 %. Carbona-ceous compounds were at the most 27 % of PM 1 mass. It was found that heating the air from the tower to 200 °C re-sulted in the loss of approximately 60 % of the aerosol vol-ume at 0.25 µm D p whereas only 40 % of the aerosol volume was removed at 0.6 µm D p . Further heating to 300 °C caused very little additional losses < 0.6 µm D p . The chemical anal-ysis did not include carbonaceous compounds, but based on the difference between the total mass concentration and the sum of the analyzed non-carbonaceous materials, it can be assumed that the non-volatile particulate material (heated to 300 °C) consists mainly of carbonaceous compounds, includ-ing elemental carbon. Furthermore, it was found that the non-volatile particle fraction < 0.6 µm D p correlated (r 2 = 0.4) with the BC concentration at roof level in the city, support-ing the assumption that the non-volatile material consists of carbonaceous compounds. The average diurnal cycles of the BC emissions from road traffic (as inferred from the ratio of the incremental concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NO x) and BC measured on a densely trafficked street) and the fluxes of non-volatile material at tower level are in close agreement, suggesting a traffic source of BC. We have estimated the emission factors (EFs) for non-volatile particles < 0.6 µm D p to be 2.4 ± 1.4 mg veh −1 km −1 based on either CO 2 fluxes or traffic activity data. Light (LDV) and heavy duty vehicle (HDV) EFs were estimated using multiple linear regression and reveal that for non-volatile particulate matter in the 0.25 to 0.6 µm D p range, the EF HDV is approximately twice as high as the EF LDV , the difference not being statistically sig-nificant.