A comparison of black carbon measurement methods for combustion sources

Abstract:

Black carbon is an important short-term climate forcer that has been linked with adverse health effects. Multiple black carbon measurement methodologies exist, but no standard measurement method or calibration material has been agreed upon. Moreover, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses elemental carbon in its ambient monitoring networks and in its emissions inventory, assuming that elemental carbon is equivalent to black carbon. Instrument comparisons with ambient aerosols have demonstrated considerable differences between black carbon and elemental carbon, as well as among different black carbon measurements. However, there have been few published comparable studies for source emissions. We used multiple measurement methods to quantify black carbon and elemental carbon emissions from a range of combustion sources (diesel gensets, coal fired boilers, prescribed fires and cookstoves) emitting particles of varying composition and physical characteristics. The ratio of black carbon to elemental carbon (BC/EC) ranged from 0.50 to 2.8 and depended upon the combustion source. The greatest agreement was observed for emissions from cookstoves (BC/EC = 1.1 ± 0.3). The largest differences were seen for emissions from large stationary diesel genset (BC/EC = 2.3 ± 0.5) and were most pronounced when a diesel particulate filter was used (BC/EC 2.5 ± 0.6). This suggests that this source category may be underrepresented in emissions inventories based on elemental carbon. Black carbon concentrations derived from filter-based attenuation were highly correlated with photo-acoustic absorption measurements, but were generally 50% greater. This is likely due to the choice of calibration factor, which is currently ambiguously defined. These results highlight the importance of developing a standard calibration material to improve comparability among measurements.