10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

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Comparing Organic Speciation of Biomass Burning Aerosol Produced in Laboratory Burns and Prescribed Fires in the Field

AUDREY DANG, Skyler Simon, Claire Fortenberry, Michael Walker, Christopher Oxford, Benjamin Sumlin, Jiayu Li, Jonathan Myers, Brent Williams, Washington University in St. Louis

     Abstract Number: 1372
     Working Group: Aerosol Chemistry

Abstract
Both laboratory and field measurements of chemical source profiles contribute to our understanding of organic aerosol, which negatively affects human health and impacts global radiative forcing. While laboratory experiments allow more careful control of sources, field measurements capture realistic emission conditions. For example, the chemical composition of biomass burning organic aerosol depends on combustion phase (e.g., flaming or smoldering) as well as the fuel type (e.g., oak or lodgepole pine, leaf or heartwood), making supporting laboratory experiments necessary to differentiate contributing source types and combustion conditions in complex field observations (Fortenberry et al. 2017).

We compare organic speciation of biomass burning organic aerosol sampled during prescribed fires of forest plots at Tyson Research Center (30 km southwest of St. Louis, MO, USA) and produced during laboratory burns of biomass collected from the same plots. Both laboratory and field samples are collected on quartz filters for analysis with a Filter Thermal Desorption Aerosol Gas Chromatograph (Filter TAG). Field samples were collected below the canopy as well as above the canopy with an unmanned aerial vehicle. Individual molecular markers and positive matrix factorization (PMF) solutions of binned chromatograms are compared (Zhang et al. 2014).

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[2] Zhang, Y., Williams, B.J., Goldstein, A.H., Docherty, K., Ulbrich, I.M. and Jimenez, J.L. (2014), A Technique for Rapid Gas Chromatography Analysis Applied to Ambient Organic Aerosol Measurements from the Thermal Desorption Aerosol Gas Chromatograph (TAG), Aerosol Sci. Technol. 48 (11): 1166-1182.