An innovative passive sampler to reveal the high contribution of biomass burning to black carbon over Indo-China Peninsula: Radiocarbon constraints

Abstract

Black carbon (BC) is an important component of the brown clouds, contributing to climate and health effects of air pollution. In this work, we developed a new method for measuring BC concentrations and its radiocarbon isotope (14C) using quartz wool disk passive air samplers (Pas-QW). A field calibration study was conducted at two sampling sites (Guangzhou and Yantai), using an improved thermal/optical method to measure BC. Uptake profiles of Pas-QW were linear over the 77 days that the samplers were deployed, and the average sampling rate of BC measured was 1.1 ± 0.2 m3/day. The method was found to be reproducible with coefficients of variation as low as 17% for BC measured in ambient passive samples. Furthermore, passive sampling was carried out at six sites in the Indo-China Peninsula (ICP) from January to April and June to September of 2016. The high BC concentrations and the high fraction of modern carbon (fM) values emphasizes that ICP is still dominated by biomass burning emissions (residential cooking and agricultural burning), both in dry and wet seasons. This study provides a proof concept and methodology for the application of Pas-QW to cost-effectively expand measurements of BC at the global scale.