Contrasting the Composition of Urban and Remote Fine Aerosols Using Single Particle Inductively Coupled Plasma Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry
PATRICK HAYES, Kevin Wilkinson, James King, Yannick Tardif, Léa Richard, Daniel Bellamy, Alisée Dourlent, Nicole Trieu, Katia Iatariene, Houssame-Eddine Ahabchane, Universite de Montreal
Abstract Number: 459
Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract
Elevated concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM) are associated with poor air quality and a variety of adverse health effects. However, the variety of single particle techniques available for elemental analysis of fine particles is limited. In this work, PM2.5 samples were collected and extracted into water from polycarbonate filtration membranes (Nuclepore). The elemental composition of the extracted particles was then determined using single particle inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SP ICP-ToF-MS), which was applied to compare the composition of urban fine PM (Montreal, QC, Canada) and fine PM collected from a remote high latitude region impacted by local mineral dust (Kluane Lake, YT, Canada). Hierarchical clustering was used to classify the different types of PM and better determine their atmospheric origin. Clusters of particles containing Fe, Si, Al, SiAl, AlFe, TiFe, SiMgAl, Ce and Cr have been identified in both locations, although the abundance of some of these clusters are different between the two locations. Most notably, Fe-containing particles, likely iron oxides, were the largest particle type by number concentration at the remote site. Whereas, Ti-containing particles, likely titanium dioxide, were the largest type by number concentration at the urban site. Furthermore, greater quantities of trace elements like Pb and Cr were observed at the urban site, either as the predominant component within the particle, or as a minor constituent in or on a particle containing natural major elements. The presentation will discuss the potential new applications of SP ICP-ToF-MS for source apportionment of metals and metalloids in fine PM using the results from the two field sites.