AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Introducing the Volatility and Polarity Separator (VAPS) for Total Organic Aerosol Characterization
RAUL MARTINEZ, Brent Williams, Yaping Zhang, Peter Mellott, Nathan Kreisberg, Susanne Hering, David Worton, Allen H. Goldstein, Thorsten Hohaus, Manjula Canagaratna, Donna Sueper, John Jayne, Douglas Worsnop, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract Number: 477 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract Discrepancies between modeled and measured atmospheric organic aerosol (OA) have shown the need for real-time instrumentation that can characterize this material throughout its evolution in the atmosphere. Such an instrument must provide a high level of chemical separation with high time resolution, while maintaining near complete mass closure. Here, we propose and introduce the Volatility and Polarity Separator (VAPS) for such measurements. This novel instrument combines thermal desorption for volatility separation with short gas chromatography for polarity separation, and final detection using high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The multi-dimensional space of volatility separation, polarity separation, and high resolution mass spectra will distinguish key chemical characteristics such as the oxygen-to-carbon (O:C) ratio and hydrogen-to-carbon (H:C) ratio of OA as a function of volatility and polarity, and allow identification of particle source markers. Laboratory and ambient measurements will be presented to explore this technique’s capability of reporting the atmospheric evolution of volatility- and polarity-resolved OA.