Aerosol chemical mass closure during the EUROTRAC-2 AEROSOL Intercomparison 2000

Abstract

The field work for the AEROSOL Intercomparison 2000 took place from 4 to 14 April 2000 at Melpitz, Germany. One objective was to assess to which extent aerosol chemical mass closure could be obtained for the site. For this purpose, we operated four filter samplers in parallel (mostly using 12-h collections): two Gent PM10 stacked filter unit (SFU) samplers (one with coarse and fine Nuclepore polycarbonate filters, the other with a Gelman Teflo filter as fine filter) and two single filter holders (one with PM2.5 inlet, the other with PM10 inlet) with Whatman QM-A quartz fibre filters. All samples were analysed for the particulate mass (PM) by weighing; the samples from the first SFU were analysed for 42 elements by a combination of particle-induced X-ray emission spectroscopy and instrumental neutron activation analysis, those from the other SFU for major anions and cations by ion chromatography. All quartz filters were analysed for organic carbon and elemental carbon by a thermal–optical transmission technique. Aerosol chemical mass closure calculations were done for the separate fine (PM2) and coarse (2–10 μm) size fractions. As gravimetric PM data we used the averages from the parallel SFU collections. For reconstituting this PM, nine aerosol types (or components) were considered. Crustal matter, organic aerosol and nitrate were the major aerosol types in the coarse size fraction; the dominant aerosol types in the fine fraction were organic aerosol, nitrate and sulphate. The included components explained 116% and 86% of the gravimetric PM in the coarse and fine size fractions, respectively.