A11G-0144
Chemical Composition Characteristics of Particulate Matter in Seoul Metropolitan Area during the Pre-campaign Period of KORUS-AQ

Monday, 14 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
JinSoo Park1, Joonyoung Ahn2, Minyoung Seong2, Haeun Jeon2, Sojung Yoo2, Hyunjae Kim2, Choi Jin Soo2, Youdeog Hong2 and Jihyung Hong2, (1)Organization Not Listed, Washington, DC, United States, (2)NIER National Institute of Environmental Research, Incheon, South Korea
Abstract:
While the current concentration of particulate matter (PM10) in the metropolitan areas of South Korea shows a continuous decreasing tendency, the high concentration episodes have reportedly been increasing. The Ministry of Environment of Korea plans to promote the Korea-US Air Quality Campaign (hereinafter referred to as KORUS-AQ) in cooperation with NASA, to identify the drivers of particulate matter and ozone and improve the accuracy of forecasting models.

The purpose of this research is to identify the chemical composition characteristics of particulate matters (PM10 and PM2.5) by analyzing the filters collected at the Seoul intensive monitoring site during the pre-campaign period. From May 18 through June 19 in 2015, we collected the PM10 and PM2.5 samples from 10 am to 9 am the next day every day for 23 hours by using the low-volume air sampler at KIST, located in Hawolgok-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea, to analyse fine dust concentration and ionic, carbonaceous, and elemental components.

During the research period, the PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations were within 21.1 - 78.5 ug/m3 and 12.0 - 56.0 ug/m3, respectively and the average PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations were 42.5 ug/m3 and 24.6 ug/m3, respectively. In 24.6 ug/m3 of the average PM2.5 mass concentration, anions were 37.1 %( 9.7 ug/m3) and cations were 13.9%( 3.6 ug/m3), indicating that 51% of the PM2.5 components were ions. In the ionic components of PM2.5, sulfate showed the highest concentration (7.03 ug/m3), followed by nitrate (2.61 ug/m3), chloride (0.08 ug/m3), ammonium (3.14 mu/m3), sodium (0.17 ug/m3), kalium (0.15 ug/m3), calcium (0.11 ug/m3), and magnesium (0.01 ug/m3).

The average concentrations of carbonaceous components of PM2.5 were 4.2 ug/m3 (18.7 %) for organic carbon (OC) and 2.2 ug /m3 (9.8 %) for inorganic carbon (EC), indicating that PM2.5 had total 6.4 ug/m3 (28.5 %) of carbon. As a result of the analysis on elemental components, it was shown that PM2.5 had 1.61 ug/m3(6.9 %) of crustal materials and 0.08 ug/m3 (0.4 %) of trace metals that accounted for 7.3%. PM10 was high in crustal materials, as it had 7.40 ug/m3(18.0 %) of crustal materials and 0.15 ug/m3 (0.4 %) of trace metals that accounted for 18.4%. Compared to PM2.5, PM10 showed high concentrations of K, Ca, Ti, Fe, and Zn that are the main components of fugitive dusts and crust materials.