Jump to main content
US EPA
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Search
Search
Main menu
Environmental Topics
Laws & Regulations
About EPA
Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)
Contact Us
Print
Feedback
Export to File
Search:
This record has one attached file:
Add More Files
Attach File(s):
Display Name for File*:
Save
Citation
Tags
HERO ID
1011466
Reference Type
Journal Article
Title
Nonpolar organic compounds in fine particles: quantification by thermal desorption-GC/MS and evidence for their significant oxidation in ambient aerosols in Hong Kong
Author(s)
Yu, JZ; Huang, XH; Ho, SS; Bian, Q
Year
2011
Is Peer Reviewed?
Yes
Journal
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry
ISSN:
1618-2642
EISSN:
1618-2650
Volume
401
Issue
10
Page Numbers
3125-3139
Number of Pages
15
Language
English
PMID
21983947
DOI
10.1007/s00216-011-5458-5
Web of Science Id
WOS:000297159900008
Abstract
Nonpolar organic compounds (NPOCs) in ambient particulate matter (PM) commonly include n-alkanes, branched alkanes, hopanes and steranes, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The recent development of thermal desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) has greatly reduced time and labor in their quantification by eliminating the laborious solvent extraction and sample concentration steps in the traditional approach that relies on solvent extraction. The simplicity of the TD-GCMS methods has afforded us concentration data of NPOCs in more than 90 aerosol samples in two aerosol field studies and 20 vehicular emissions-dominated source samples in Hong Kong over the past few years. In this work, we examine the interspecies relationships between select NPOCs and their concentration ratios to elemental carbon (EC) among the ambient samples and among the source samples. Our analysis indicates that hopanes were mainly from vehicular emissions and they were significantly oxidized in ambient PM. The hopane/EC ratio in ambient samples was on average less than half of the ratio in vehicular emissions-dominated source samples. This highlights the necessity in considering oxidation loss in applying organic tracer data in source apportionment studies. Select PAH/EC ratio-ratio plots reveal that PAHs had diverse sources and vehicular emissions were unlikely a dominant source for PAHs in Hong Kong. Biomass burning and other regional sources likely dominated ambient PAHs in Hong Kong.
Keywords
Organic aerosols;Source apportionment;Molecular tracers;Atmospheric oxidation;Carbonaceous aerosol;Squalane;POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS;AIR-POLLUTION SOURCES;DUTY DIESEL TRUCKS;PARTICULATE MATTER;GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY;CARBONACEOUS AEROSOLS;CHEMICAL-COMPOSITION;SOURCE APPORTIONMENT;SEASONAL-VARIATION;MOLECULAR TRACERS;BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS;CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL
Month
12
Tags
•
Chloroform Combined (current)
Chloroform (original)
•
PM Provisional Assessment (2012 Project Page)
Experimental Studies
PM Components and Sources
OPPT
•
Squalane
Literature Search
Fate
WOS (private)
Environmental Hazard
WOS (private)
Home
Learn about HERO
Using HERO
Search HERO
Projects in HERO
Risk Assessment
Transparency & Integrity