Chemical composition and mass closure for fine and coarse aerosols at a kerbside in Budapest, Hungary, in spring

ABSTRACT A comprehensive chemical aerosol characterisation was carried out at a kerbside in downtown Budapest in spring 2002. Several filter samplers were deployed in parallel for day and night collections, and a total of 23 parallel collections were made. All samples were analysed for the particulate mass (PM) by weighing. Depending upon the sampler type and/or collection substrate, further analyses were done for up to 46 elements by a combination of PIXE and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), for major anions and cations by ion chromatography, and for organic carbon and elemental carbon by a thermal-optical transmission technique. Aerosol chemical mass closure calculations were done for the separate fine (<2 µm) and coarse (2-10 µm) size fractions. For reconstituting the gravimetric PM, eight aerosol types were considered, whereby three aerosol types were deduced from the PIXE/INAA elemental data set. Organic matter (OM) and elemental carbon were the dominant aerosol types in the fine fraction; they explained on average 43 and 21% of the fine PM. The coarse PM consisted mainly of crustal matter (49%) and of OM (30%). The large contribution from crustal matter (road dust) to the coarse fraction is consistent with other data from kerbside sites in Europe

Contribution from selected organic species to PM2.5 aerosol during a summer field campaign at K-Puszta, Hungary

A summer field campaign was conducted at the forested background site of K-puszta in Hungary. The main aim was to assess the contribution of terpene-derived particulate organic compounds to the PM2.5 organic carbon (OC) and of the secondary organic carbon (SOC) from -pinene to the OC. The study lasted from 24 May to 29 June 2006; the first half the weather was cold, while the second half was warm. Separate daytime and night-time PM2.5 samples were collected with a high-volume sampler and the samples were analysed by several analytical techniques, including ion chromatography (IC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS). The latter technique was used for measuring the terpene-derived species. Ancillary high time resolution measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were made with proton-transfer reaction-mass spectrometry. The temporal and diurnal variability of the particulate compounds and VOCs and interrelationships were examined. It was found that the monoterpenes and a number of terpene-derived particulate compounds, such as cis-pinic and cis-caric acid, exhibited a strong day/night difference during the warm period, with about 10 times higher levels during the night-time. During the warm period, the IC compounds and LC/MS compounds accounted, on average, for 3.1% and 2.0%, respectively, of the OC, whereas the contribution of SOC from -pinene to the OC was estimated at a minimum of 7.1%