Technical note: A new approach to discriminate different black carbon sources by utilising fullerene and metals in positive matrix factorisation analysis of high-resolution soot particle aerosol mass spectrometer data

Abstract

Abstract. Atmospheric aerosol particles are known to have detrimental\neffects on human health and climate. Black carbon is an important\nconstituent of atmospheric aerosol particulate matter (PM), emitted from\nincomplete combustion. Source apportionment of BC is very important, to\nevaluate the influence of different sources. The high-resolution soot\nparticle aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-SP-AMS) instrument uses a laser\nvaporiser, which allows the real-time detection and characterisation of\nrefractory black carbon (rBC) and its internally mixed particles such as\nmetals, coating species, and rBC subcomponents in the form of HOA\u2009+\u2009fullerene.\nIn this case study, the soot data were collected by using HR-SP-AMS during\nGuy Fawkes Night on 5\xa0November\xa02014. Positive matrix factorisation was\napplied to positively discriminate between different wood-burning and\nbonfire sources for the first time, which no existing black carbon source\napportionment technique is currently able to do. Along with this, the use of\nthe fullerene signals in differentiating between soot sources and the use of\nmetals as a tracer for fireworks has also been investigated, which did not\nsignificantly contribute to the rBC concentrations. The addition of\nfullerene signals and successful positive matrix factorisation (PMF) application to HR-SP-AMS data\napportioned rBC into more than two sources. These bonfire sources are\nHOA\u2009+\u2009fullerene, biomass burning organic aerosol, more oxidised oxygenated\norganic aerosol (MO-OOA), and non-bonfire sources such as hydrocarbon-like OA\nand domestic burning. The result of correlation analysis between HR-SP-AMS\ndata and previously published Aethalometer, MAAP, and CIMS data provides an\neffective way of gaining insights into the relationships between the\nvariables and provide a quantitative estimate of the source contributions to\nthe BC budget during this period. This research study is an important\ndemonstration of using HR-SP-AMS for the purpose of BC source apportionment.\n