Organic components and chemical mass balance of fine aerosol in different areas of Europe

1. Aerosol Sci. Vol. 29. Suppl. I, pp. S73 l-5732, 1998 0 1998 Published by Ekvier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0021-8502/98 $19.00 + 0.00

ORGANIC COMPONENTS AND CHEMICAL MASS BALANCE OF FINE AEROSOL IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF EUROPE

S. ZAPPOLI’, A. ANDRACCHIO’, S. FUZZI’, M.C. FACCHINI’, A. GELENCSER3, G. KISS3, Z. KRIVACSY3, A. MOLNdLR3, T. BARCZA3, E. MESZbLROS3, H-C. HANSSOti, K. ROSti and Y. ZEBiiHR4 ‘Dipartimento di Chimica Fisica e Inorganica, Universita di Bologna, I-40 136 Bologna (Italy) zIstituto FISBAT - CNR, I-40129 Bologna (Italy) ‘Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Veszprem, H-820 1 Veszprem (Hungary) 41nstitnte of Applied Environmental Research, Stockholm University, S- 1069 1 Stockholm (Sweden)

KEYWORDS Aerosol Chemistry, Water Soluble Aerosol, Organic Aerosol, Macromolecular Compounds

A chemical mass balance of fine aerosol (< 1.5 urn AED) collected at three European sites was performed with reference to the water solubility of the different aerosol classes of components. The sampling sites are characterised by different pollution conditions and aerosol loading in the air. Aspvreten is a background site in southern Sweden (S), K-puszta is a rural site in the Great Hungarian Plain @I) and San Pietro Capofiume is located in the polluted PO Valley, northern Italy (I). Hi-V01 aerosol samples were collected at the three stations over the period JuneSeptember 1996. The aerosol was collected on pre-fired (at 450°C) binder-free quartz filters for a period ranging between 20 and 48 hours at a flow rate of 33 SCFM. The Hi-V01 collector was provided with a pre-separator which excluded particles larger than ca. 1.5 pm AED. The average mass concentration and the average amount of carbonaceous compounds in the filters collected at the three sites is reported in Fig. 1. The figure shows the large difference in aerosol mass concentration among the three sites, with the rural H site representing an intermediate level of aerosol loading in the air between the background S and the polluted I sites. The contribution of TC to the mass of the aerosol is also different among the sites, representing ca. 50% of the aerosol mass at the clean site S and ~8. 25% at the other two sites. Further speciation of the aerosol components was performed with reference to the water solubility of the different species. The results are summarised in Table 1. The results of this investigation evidence that the soluble fraction of the fine aerosol is very high at all three sites, ranging from 65 to 75%. Furthermore, the background site is characterised by a high fraction (ca. 50%) of WSOC with respect to the total aerosol water s731

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Abstracts

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Fig. 1 - Average concentration of total aerosol massand total carbon (TC) at the tbrec sampling sites.

soluble fraction, while at the rural and polluted continental sites the WSOC represents ca. 20% of the water soluble aerosol material. Over 70% of the organic compounds in the fine aerosol at all sites is of polar nature.

Table 1 - Speciation (in % units) of different aerosol classesof components. EC=elementaI carbon, WISOC= water-insoluble organ&, WSOC=water-soluble organ&, OSII=otber soluble inorganic ions, WISIC=water-insoluble inorganics, ND=non detected. EC

WISOC

WSOC

OS11

NH.,+

so:-

NO;

WISIC

ND

1 2 3

7 13 7

36 14 14

11

4

2 14

10 10

20 32 20

4 8 16

15 na. 11

18

site

S H I

6

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was financed by the European Commission Program “Environment Climate”, Project SOAP (ENV4-CT95-0009).

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