Abstract
Mobile sources are significant contributors to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5). An important method for resolving the mobile source contribution is chemical mass balance (CMB) receptor modelling, which requires chemically speciated source profiles to estimate source contributions. This paper examines similarities and differences in US mobile source PM2.5profiles containing data for elements, ions, elemental (EC) and organic carbon (OC) and, in some cases, speciated organics. Characteristics of the data include variability in the relative contributions of elements and ions among supposedly similar sources and the wide range of elemental to organic carbon ratios (0.60 ± 0.53 to 1.42 ± 2.99) for light-duty gasoline vehicles (LDGVs), indicating LDGVs may be significant sources of EC emissions. Different populations of the same class of emitters also exhibited considerable variability in the relative emissions of other species, suggesting caution be exercised when selecting and using receptor models to apportion the mobile source contribution to PM2.5.
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