Sampling Carbonaceous Aerosols: A Review of Methods and Previous Measurements

摘要

The carbonaceous aerosols, a complex mixture of carbonate carbon, elementalcarbon and organic carbon (organic compounds), are of environmental importance due to their impact on visibility and the toxicity of some of the organic compounds. A knowledge of the relative vapor and particle concentration of semivolatile organic compounds is required to understand how the compounds are transported in the atmosphere and removed by deposition. Due to the multiplicity of compounds of varying volatility in the organic aerosols, the sampling of these particles presents an extremely difficult challenge. The report, based on a literature search of measurement studies for the past twenty years, reviews the possible artifacts that can occur that result in positive and negative errors due to volatilization, sorption or reaction during the sampling processes. The sampling approaches that have been used range from single filters to complex parallel multiple component systems that employ diffusion devices to separate particles and vapors. The artifacts that were addressed by each approach are included. A representative survey of previous carbonaceous aerosol measurements are listed. The first list includes measurements of elemental carbon and organic carbon without resolution of individual organic compounds.