Characteristics of secondary organic aerosols tracers in PM2.5 in three central cities of the Yangtze river delta, China

Chen Yang; Zhenyu Hong; Jinsheng Chen; Lingling Xu; Mazhan Zhuang; Zhi Huang

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.133637

Characteristics of secondary organic aerosols tracers in PM_2.5 in three central cities of the Yangtze river delta, China

Chemosphere. 2022 Apr:293:133637. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.133637. Epub 2022 Jan 18.

Authors

Chen Yang¹, Zhenyu Hong¹, Jinsheng Chen², Lingling Xu³, Mazhan Zhuang⁴, Zhi Huang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Center for Excellence in Regional Atmospheric Environment, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China; Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
² Center for Excellence in Regional Atmospheric Environment, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China; Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China. Electronic address: jschen@iue.ac.cn.
³ Center for Excellence in Regional Atmospheric Environment, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China; Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China. Electronic address: linglingxu@iue.ac.cn.
⁴ Xiamen Institute of Environmental Science, Xiamen, 361021, China.

PMID: 35063553
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.133637

Abstract

Secondary organic aerosols (SOA) are important atmospheric pollutants that affect air quality, radiation, and human health. In this study, 14 typical SOA tracers were measured in PM_2.5 collected from three central cities of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in the winter of 2014 and the summer of 2015. Among the determined SOA tracers, α/β-pinene SOA tracers contributed 55.9%, followed by isoprene SOA tracers (33.7%), anthropogenic benzene SOA tracer (6.4%) and β-caryophyllene SOA tracer (4.0%). There was no significant difference in the concentration of individual SOA tracers among the three cities (p > 0.05), indicating a high degree of regional consistency. The concentrations of isoprene, α/β-pinene, and toluene SOA tracers were significantly higher in summer than in winter. A correlation of SOA tracers with temperature implies that the isoprene and α/β-pinene SOA tracers in summer were greatly boosted by plant emissions and the high DHOPA in summer could be attributed to evaporation of paint and solvent. In contrast, the elevated β-caryophyllene SOA tracer in winter was likely associated with active biomass burning. Furthermore, we observed a close correlation of summer isoprene and α/β-pinene SOA tracers with sulfate only in Shanghai, which verifies that biogenic SOA formation was facilitated by high concentration of sulfate. The ratios of MGA/MTLs and P/M were applied to reveal the impact of NO_x on SOA formation and the aging degree of SOA, respectively. The MGA/MTLs ratios were comparable for the three cities, but much higher than the background value of this region as expected. The P/M ratios suggest that the aging degree of SOA in the YRD region was generally low, but the winter SOA were fresher than the summer SOA. Our research helps to understand pollution characteristics of SOA tracers in the urban agglomeration.

Keywords: Organic tracers; PM(2.5); Pollution characteristics; Secondary organic aerosol; The yangtze river delta region.

MeSH terms

Aerosols / analysis
Air Pollutants* / analysis
China
Environmental Monitoring
Humans
Particulate Matter* / analysis
Rivers
Urbanization

Substances

Aerosols
Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter