Geun-Hye Yu

Influence of haze pollution on water-soluble chemical species in PM 2.5 and size-resolved particles at an urban site during fall

To investigate the influence of haze on the chemical composition and formation processes of ambient aerosol particles, PM2.5 and size-segregated aerosol particles were collected daily during fall at an urban site of Gwangju, Korea. During the study period, the total concentration of secondary ionic species (SIS) contributed an average of 43.9% to the PM2.5, whereas the contribution of SIS to the PM2.5 during the haze period was 62.3%. The NO3- and SO42- concentrations in PM2.5 during the haze period were highly elevated, being 13.4 and 5.0 times higher than those during non-haze period, respectively. The PM, NO3-, SO42-, oxalate, water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), and humic-like substances (HULIS) had tri-modal size distributions peaks at 0.32, 1.0, and 5.2μm during the non-haze and haze periods. However, during the non-haze period they exhibited dominant size distributions at the condensation mode peaking at 0.32μm, while on October 21 when the heaviest haze event occurred, they had predominant droplet mode size distributions peaking at 1.00μm. Moreover, strong correlations of WSOC and HULIS with SO42-, oxalate, and K+ at particle sizes of <1.8μm indicate that secondary processes and emissions from biomass burning could be responsible for WSOC and HULIS formations. It was found that the factors affecting haze formation could be the local stable synoptic conditions, including the weak surface winds and high surface pressures, the long-range transportation of haze from eastern China and upwind regions of the Korean peninsula, as well as the locally emitted and produced aerosol particles.

Source contributions and potential source regions of size-resolved water-soluble organic carbon measured at an urban site over one year

In this study, 24 h size-segregated particulate matter (PM) samples were collected between September 2012 and August 2013 at an urban site in Korea to investigate seasonal mass size distributions of PM and its water-soluble components as well as to infer the possible sources of size-resolved water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) using a positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. The potential source contribution function (PSCF) was also computed to identify the possible source regions of size-resolved WSOC. The seasonal average contribution of water-soluble organic matter to PM1.8 was in the range from 12.7 to 19.7%, but higher (21.0%) and lower contributions (8.9%) were observed during a severe haze event and an Asian dust event, respectively. The seasonal mass size distribution of WSOC had a dominant droplet mode peaking at 0.55 μm and a minor coarse mode peaking at 3.1 μm. The droplet mode WSOC was found to strongly correlate with oxalate, SO42-, NO3-, and K+, suggesting that in-cloud processes and biomass burning emissions are important sources of droplet mode WSOC. This finding was verified by the results obtained using PMF models. Secondary organic aerosols (oxalate + SO42- + NO3-) and biomass burning were the most important contributors (70.3%) to condensation mode WSOC. In the droplet mode, in-cloud processes and secondary NO3- (+biomass burning) were important sources of WSOC, contributing on average 46.4 and 25.9% to the WSOC, respectively. In the coarse mode, soil dust and secondary processes contributed 52.5 and 42.5% to the WSOC, respectively. The PMF analyses and PSCF maps of WSOC, SO42-, and K+ indicate that condensation mode WSOC was mostly influenced by the secondary organic aerosols and biomass burning from both local and long-range transported pollutants, while droplet mode WSOC was primarily the result of atmospheric processing during the long range transport of biogenic and anthropogenic pollutants from the eastern regions of China.