A Novel Inlet System for On-line Chemical Analysis of Semi-Volatile Submicron Particulate Matter

Abstract:

Semi-volatile organic molecules bound to particles are difficult to measure, especially if they are reactive in nature. Any technique based on aerosol collection onto a substrate generates sampling artifacts due to surface reactions and ad- and desorption of semi-volatile analytes. On-line sampling without sample pre-collection, as for example implemented in the AMS, has greatly reduced many sampling artifacts. AMS measurements of organics do, however, suffer from the drawback that molecular-level information is, in most cases, lost during hard ionization events. As a consequence, only little speciated and thus mechanistically informative data on organic matter is obtained. PTR-ToF-MS is a well-established on-line measurement technique for gas-phase organics. Soft ionization via gas-phase hydronium ions preserves, to a large extent, molecular-level information and thus allows identifying organic compounds at an elemental composition level. We have recently developed a particle inlet system for PTR-ToF-MS instruments (doi:10.5194/amt-8-1353-2015). The CHARON (“Chemical Analysis of Aerosol On-line”) inlet consists of a gas-phase denuder, an aerodynamic lens and a thermodesorption unit. In its latest version, it includes a heatable tube upstream of the denuder to form a thermodenuder. Over the last year, the CHARON PTR-ToF-MS system has been successfully used in a series of measurement campaigns to characterize i) POA emitted from a marine diesel engine, ii) SOA generated from the photo-oxidation of toluene, iii) SOA generated from the photo-oxidation of selected amines, iv) ambient aerosol in two major European cities and v) SOA generated from the photo-oxidation of biogenic VOCs. These measurements have demonstrated that the CHARON PTR-ToF-MS system i) generates on-line and real-time elemental composition information of semi-volatile organics in submicron particles (both POA and SOA), ii) detects 80-100 % of the organic mass as measured by the AMS and iii) generates volatility information of semi-volatile organics at an elemental composition level. Selected application examples will be shown.