Source apportionment of fine particulate matter in Houston, Texas: insights to secondary organic aerosols

摘要

Online and offline measurements of ambient particulate matter (PM) near the urban and industrial Houston Ship Channel in Houston, Texas, USA, during May 2015 were utilized to characterize its chemical composition and to evaluate the relative contributions of primary, secondary, biogenic, and anthropogenic sources. Aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS) on nonrefractory PM1 (PM = 1 mu m) indicated major contributions from sulfate (averaging 50% by mass), organic aerosol (OA, 40 %), and ammonium (14 %). Positive matrix factorization (PMF) of AMS data categorized OA on average as 22% hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol (HOA), 29% cooking-influenced less-oxidized oxygenated organic aerosol (CI-LO-OOA), and 48% more-oxidized oxygenated organic aerosol (MO-OOA), with the latter two sources indicative of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Chemical analysis of PM2.5 (PM = 2.5 mu m) filter samples agreed that organic matter (35 %) and sulfate (21 %) were the most abundant components. Organic speciation of PM2.5 organic carbon (OC) focused on molecular markers of primary sources and SOA tracers derived from biogenic and anthropogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The sources of PM2.5 OC were estimated using molecular marker-based positive matric factorization (MM-PMF) and chemical mass balance (CMB) models. MM-PMF resolved nine factors that were identified as diesel engines (11.5 %), gasoline engines (24.3 %), nontailpipe vehicle emissions (11.1 %), ship emissions (2.2 %), cooking (1.0 %), biomass burning (BB, 10.6 %), isoprene SOA (11.0 %), high-NOx anthropogenic SOA (6.6 %), and low-NO x anthropogenic SOA (21.7 %). Using available source profiles, CMB apportioned 41% of OC to primary fossil sources (gasoline engines, diesel engines, and ship emissions), 5% to BB, 15% to SOA (including 7.4% biogenic and 7.6% anthropogenic), and 39% to other sources that were not included in the model and are expected to be secondary.