Application of the ECT9 protocol for radiocarbon-based source apportionment of carbonaceous aerosols

• Main Authors: L. Huang, W. Zhang, G. M. Santos, B. T. Rodríguez, S. R. Holden, V. Vetro, C. I. Czimczik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2021-05-01
• Series: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
• Online Access: https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/14/3481/2021/amt-14-3481-2021.pdf

<p>Carbonaceous aerosol is mainly composed of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC). Both OC and EC originate from a variety of emission sources. Radiocarbon (<span class="inline-formula">¹⁴C</span>) analysis can be used to apportion bulk aerosol, OC, and EC into their sources. However, such analyses require the physical separation of OC and EC.</p> <p>Here, we apply of ECT9 protocol to physically isolate OC and EC for <span class="inline-formula">¹⁴C</span> analysis and evaluate its effectiveness. Several reference materials are selected, including two pure OC (fossil “adipic acid” and contemporary “sucrose”), two pure EC (fossil “regal black” and “C1150”), and three complex materials containing contemporary and/or fossil OC and EC (“rice char”, NIST urban dust standards “SRM1649a” and “SRM8785”, i.e., fine fraction of resuspended SRM1649a on filters). The pure materials were measured for their OC, EC, and total carbon (TC) mass fractions and corresponding carbon isotopes to evaluate the uncertainty of the procedure. The average accuracy of TC mass, determined via volumetric injection of a sucrose solution, was approximately 5 %. Ratios of <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M3" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">EC</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">TC</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="38pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="7c7ca3abf63eb567996671d1b7f250c0"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="amt-14-3481-2021-ie00001.svg" width="38pt" height="14pt" src="amt-14-3481-2021-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> and <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow class="chem"><mi mathvariant="normal">OC</mi><mo>/</mo><mi mathvariant="normal">TC</mi></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="39pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="6166201680d220ba9c703cdcb92602c8"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="amt-14-3481-2021-ie00002.svg" width="39pt" height="14pt" src="amt-14-3481-2021-ie00002.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> were highly reproducible, with analytical precisions better than 2 % for all reference materials, ranging in size from 20 to 100 <span class="inline-formula">µg</span> <span class="inline-formula">C</span>. Consensus values were reached for all pure reference materials for both <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i></span><span class="inline-formula">¹³C</span> and fraction modern (<span class="inline-formula">F¹⁴C</span>), with an uncertainty of <span class="inline-formula">&lt;</span> 0.3 ‰ and approximately 5 %, respectively. The procedure introduced 1.3 <span class="inline-formula">±</span> 0.6 <span class="inline-formula">µg</span> of extraneous carbon, an amount compatible to that of the Swiss_4S protocol.</p> <p>In addition, OC and EC were isolated from mixtures of pure contemporary OC (sucrose) with pure fossil EC (regal black) and fossil OC (adipic acid) with contemporary EC (rice char EC) to evaluate the effectiveness of OC and EC separation. Consensus <span class="inline-formula">F¹⁴C</span> values were reached for all OC (<span class="inline-formula">∼</span> 5–30 <span class="inline-formula">µg</span>) and EC (<span class="inline-formula">∼</span> 10–60 <span class="inline-formula">µg</span>) fractions with an uncertainty of <span class="inline-formula">∼</span> 5 % on average. We found that the ECT9 protocol efficiently isolates OC or EC from complex mixtures. Based on <span class="inline-formula"><i>δ</i></span><span class="inline-formula">¹³C</span> measurements, the average contribution of charred OC to EC is likely less than 3 % when the OC loading amount is less than 30 <span class="inline-formula">µg</span> <span class="inline-formula">C</span>.</p> <p>Charring was further assessed by evaluating thermograms of various materials, including aerosol samples collected in the Arctic and from tailpipes of gasoline or diesel engines. These data demonstrate that the ECT9 method effectively removes pyrolyzed OC. Thus, the ECT9 protocol, initially developed for concentration and stable isotope measurements of OC and EC, is suitable for <span class="inline-formula">¹⁴C</span>-based apportionment studies, including <span class="inline-formula">µg C</span>-sized samples from arctic environments.</p>