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21.
A dual-wavelength photothermal aerosol absorption monitor : design, calibration and performance
Luka Drinovec, Uroš Jagodič, Luka Pirker, Miha Škarabot, Mario Kurtjak, Kristijan Vidović, Luca Ferrero, Bradley Visser, Jannis Röhrbein, Ernest Weingartner, Daniel M. Kalbermatter, Konstantina Vasilatou, Griša Močnik, 2022, original scientific article

Abstract: There exists a lack of aerosol absorption measurement techniques with low uncertainties and without artefacts. We have developed the two-wavelength Photothermal Aerosol Absorption Monitor (PTAAM-2λ), which measures the aerosol absorption coefficient at 532 and 1064 nm. Here we describe its design, calibration and mode of operation and evaluate its applicability, limits and uncertainties. The 532 nm channel was calibrated with ∼ 1 µmol mol−1 NO2, whereas the 1064 nm channel was calibrated using measured size distribution spectra of nigrosin particles and a Mie calculation. Since the aerosolized nigrosin used for calibration was dry, we determined the imaginary part of the refractive index of nigrosin from the absorbance measurements on solid thin film samples. The obtained refractive index differed considerably from the one determined using aqueous nigrosin solution. PTAAM-2λ has no scattering artefact and features very low uncertainties: 4 % and 6 % for the absorption coefficient at 532 and 1064 nm, respectively, and 9 % for the absorption Ångström exponent. The artefact-free nature of the measurement method allowed us to investigate the artefacts of filter photometers. Both the Aethalometer AE33 and CLAP suffer from cross-sensitivity to scattering – this scattering artefact is most pronounced for particles smaller than 70 nm. We observed a strong dependence of the filter multiple scattering parameter on the particle size in the 100–500 nm range. The results from the winter ambient campaign in Ljubljana showed similar multiple scattering parameter values for ambient aerosols and laboratory experiments. The spectral dependence of this parameter resulted in AE33 reporting the absorption Ångström exponent for different soot samples with values biased 0.23–0.35 higher than the PTAAM-2λ measurement. Photothermal interferometry is a promising method for reference aerosol absorption measurements.
Keywords: aerosol absorption, calibration, black carbon
Published in RUNG: 28.06.2022; Views: 1132; Downloads: 25
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Comparing black-carbon- and aerosol-absorption-measuring instruments – a new system using lab-generated soot coated with controlled amounts of secondary organic matter
Daniel M. Kalbermatter, Griša Močnik, Luka Drinovec, Bradley Visser, Jannis Röhrbein, Matthias Oscity, Ernest Weingartner, Antti-Pekka Hyvärinen, Konstantina Vasilatou, 2022, original scientific article

Abstract: We report on an inter-comparison of black-carbon- and aerosol-absorption-measuring instruments with laboratory-generated soot particles coated with controlled amounts of secondary organic matter (SOM). The aerosol generation setup consisted of a miniCAST 5201 Type BC burner for the generation of soot particles and a new automated oxidation flow reactor based on the micro smog chamber (MSC) for the generation of SOM from the ozonolysis of α-pinene. A series of test aerosols was generated with elemental to total carbon (EC  TC) mass fraction ranging from about 90 % down to 10 % and single-scattering albedo (SSA at 637 nm) from almost 0 to about 0.7. A dual-spot Aethalometer AE33, a photoacoustic extinctiometer (PAX, 870 nm), a multi-angle absorption photometer (MAAP), a prototype photoacoustic instrument, and two prototype photo-thermal interferometers (PTAAM-2λ and MSPTI) were exposed to the test aerosols in parallel. Significant deviations in the response of the instruments were observed depending on the amount of secondary organic coating. We believe that the setup and methodology described in this study can easily be standardised and provide a straightforward and reproducible procedure for the inter-comparison and characterisation of both filter-based and in situ black-carbon-measuring (BC-measuring) instruments based on realistic test aerosols.
Keywords: black carbon, aerosol absorption, secondary organic aerosol, coating
Published in RUNG: 01.02.2022; Views: 1610; Downloads: 48
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Characterization of non-refractory (NR) PM[sub]1 and source apportionment of organic aerosol in Kraków, Poland
Anna Tobler, Alicja Skiba, Francesco Canonaco, Griša Močnik, Pragati Rai, Gang Chen, Jakub Bartyzel, Miroslaw Zimnoch, Katarzyna Styszko, Jaroslaw Nęcki, 2021, original scientific article

Abstract: Kraków is routinely affected by very high air pollution levels, especially during the winter months. Although a lot of effort has been made to characterize ambient aerosol, there is a lack of online and long-term measurements of non-refractory aerosol. Our measurements at the AGH University of Science and Technology provide the online long-term chemical composition of ambient submicron particulate matter (PM1) between January 2018 and April 2019. Here we report the chemical characterization of non-refractory submicron aerosol and source apportionment of the organic fraction by positive matrix factorization (PMF). In contrast to other long-term source apportionment studies, we let a small PMF window roll over the dataset instead of performing PMF over the full dataset or on separate seasons. In this way, the seasonal variation in the source profiles can be captured. The uncertainties in the PMF solutions are addressed by the bootstrap resampling strategy and the random a-value approach for constrained factors. We observe clear seasonal patterns in the concentration and composition of PM1, with high concentrations during the winter months and lower concentrations during the summer months. Organics are the dominant species throughout the campaign. Five organic aerosol (OA) factors are resolved, of which three are of a primary nature (hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), biomass burning OA (BBOA) and coal combustion OA (CCOA)) and two are of a secondary nature (more oxidized oxygenated OA (MO-OOA) and less oxidized oxygenated OA (LO-OOA)). While HOA contributes on average 8.6 % ± 2.3 % throughout the campaign, the solid-fuel-combustion-related BBOA and CCOA show a clear seasonal trend with average contributions of 10.4 % ± 2.7 % and 14.1 %, ±2.1 %, respectively. Not only BBOA but also CCOA is associated with residential heating because of the pronounced yearly cycle where the highest contributions are observed during wintertime. Throughout the campaign, the OOA can be separated into MO-OOA and LO-OOA with average contributions of 38.4 % ± 8.4 % and 28.5 % ± 11.2 %, respectively.
Keywords: air pollution, PM1, organic aerosol, black carbon, source apportionment, PMF
Published in RUNG: 08.10.2021; Views: 1797; Downloads: 0
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27.
Determination of the multiple-scattering correction factor and its cross-sensitivity to scattering and wavelength dependence for different AE33 Aethalometer filter tapes : a multi-instrumental approach
Jesús Yus-Díez, Vera Bernardoni, Griša Močnik, Andrés Alastuey, Davide Ciniglia, Matic Ivančič, Xavier Querol, Noemí Perez, Cristina Reche, Martin Rigler, Roberta Vecchi, Sara Valentini, Marco Pandolfi, 2021, original scientific article

Abstract: Providing reliable observations of aerosol particles' absorption properties at spatial and temporal resolutions suited to climate models is of utter importance to better understand the effects that atmospheric particles have on climate. Nowadays, one of the instruments most widely used in international monitoring networks for in situ surface measurements of light absorption properties of atmospheric aerosol particles is the multi-wavelength dual-spot Aethalometer, AE33. The AE33 derives the absorption coefficients of aerosol particles at seven different wavelengths from the measurements of the optical attenuation of light through a filter where particles are continuously collected. An accurate determination of the absorption coefficients from the AE33 instrument relies on the quantification of the non-linear processes related to the sample collection on the filter. The multiple-scattering correction factor (C), which depends on the filter tape used and on the optical properties of the collected particles, is the parameter with both the greatest uncertainty and the greatest impact on the absorption coefficients derived from the AE33 measurements. Here we present an in-depth analysis of the AE33 multiple-scattering correction factor C and its wavelength dependence for two different and widely used filter tapes, namely the old, and most referenced, TFE-coated glass, or M8020, filter tape and the currently, and most widely used, M8060 filter tape. For performing this analysis, we compared the attenuation measurements from AE33 with the absorption coefficients measured with different filter-based techniques. On-line co-located multi-angle absorption photometer (MAAP) measurements and off-line PP_UniMI polar photometer measurements were employed as reference absorption measurements for this work. To this aim, we used data from three different measurement stations located in the north-east of Spain, namely an urban background station (Barcelona, BCN), a regional background station (Montseny, MSY) and a mountaintop station (Montsec d'Ares, MSA). The median C values (at 637 nm) measured at the three stations ranged between 2.29 (at BCN and MSY, lowest 5th percentile of 1.97 and highest 95th percentile of 2.68) and 2.51 (at MSA, lowest 5th percentile of 2.06 and highest 95th percentile of 3.06). The analysis of the cross-sensitivity to scattering, for the two filter tapes considered here, revealed a large increase in the C factor when the single-scattering albedo (SSA) of the collected particles was above a given threshold, up to a 3-fold increase above the average C values. The SSA threshold appeared to be site dependent and ranged between 0.90 to 0.95 for the stations considered in the study. The results of the cross-sensitivity to scattering displayed a fitted constant multiple-scattering parameter, Cf, of 2.21 and 1.96, and a cross-sensitivity factor, ms, of 1.8 % and 3.4 % for the MSY and MSA stations, respectively, for the TFE-coated glass filter tape. For the M8060 filter tape, Cf values of 2.50, 1.96 and 1.82 and ms values of 1.6 %, 3.0 % and 4.9 % for the BCN, MSY and MSA stations, respectively, were obtained. SSA variations also influenced the spectral dependence of C, which showed an increase with wavelength when SSA was above the site-dependent threshold. Below the SSA threshold, no statistically significant dependence of C on the wavelength was observed. For the measurement stations considered here, the wavelength dependence of C was to some extent driven by the presence of dust particles during Saharan dust outbreaks that had the potential to increase the SSA above the average values. At the mountaintop station, an omission of the wavelength dependence of the C factor led to an underestimation of the absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) by up to 12 %. Differences in the absorption coefficient determined from AE33 measurements at BCN, MSY and MSA of around 35 %–40 % can be expected when using the site-dependent experimentally obtained C value instead of the nominal C value. Due to the fundamental role that the SSA of the particles collected on the filter tape has in the multiple-scattering parameter C, we present a methodology that allows the recognition of the conditions upon which the use of a constant and wavelength-independent C is feasible.
Keywords: black carbon, aerosol absorption, filter photometer, artifact
Published in RUNG: 01.10.2021; Views: 1837; Downloads: 0
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Chemical characterization of atmospheric aerosols in the Sarajevo Canton : results of 2017-2018 Sarajevo Canton Winter Field Campaign (SAFICA)
Katja Džepina, 2018, published scientific conference contribution abstract (invited lecture)

Abstract: The World Health Organization (WHO) identified air pollution as the world’s largest single environmental health risk causing seven million deaths per year, one in eight deaths globally. Of particular concern are heavily polluted and understudied urban centres: while thousands of scientific papers have been published on air quality of the cities such as London, UK and Los Angeles, USA, only 41 papers exist on the top 10 globally most polluted cities. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), is one of urban centres which often experiences low air quality due to the extensive use of non-renewable energy sources and geographical location. For example, in Sarajevo during 2010, an annual average concentration of particulate matter (PM) with a diameter smaller than 10 µm (PM10) was 50 µg/m3, a value 2.5x higer than the recommended WHO guidelines value of 20 µg/m3. Sarajevo Canton Winter Field Campaign 2017-2018 (SAFICA) took place in the Sarajevo Canton during the cold winter season of 2017 – 2018 (Dec 4, 2017 – Mar 15, 2018), the period historically characterized with the lowest air quality according to the available data. SAFICA project was lead by Federal hydrometeorological Institute of B&H, Institute of Public Health of the Sarajevo Canton, University of Sarajevo and University of Rijeka, and field measurements took place at three urban locations within the city of Sarajevo (Otoka, Pofalići i Bjelave) i one remote location (Ivan Sedlo mountain ridge). In this presentation, the basics of anthropogenic air pollution and its global influece on the air quality will be explained. Particular attention will be given to the atmospheric PM or aerosols, and aerosols formation mechanisms and the importance of their characteristics such as atmospheric concentration, size and chemical composition will be explained. Also, the reasons for the adverse effects of aerosols on human health and the correlation of atmospheric fine PM (PM2.5) concentrations and human mortality will be explained. Finally, preliminary results of SAFICA measurements campaign will be presented and compared with those from other global urban centers.
Keywords: atmospheric aerosol, Sarajevo, urban air pollution, SAFICA 2018
Published in RUNG: 26.05.2021; Views: 2193; Downloads: 0
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30.
Molekularna karakterizacija lebdećih čestica slobodne troposfere sa Opservatorija Pico planine
Katja Džepina, Claudio Mazzoleni, Paulo Fialho, Swarup China, B. Zhang, R. Chris Owen, D. Helmig, J. Hueber, Sumit Kumar, J. A. Perlinger, 2017, published scientific conference contribution abstract

Abstract: Long-range transported free tropospheric aerosol was sampled at the PMO (38°28’15’’N, 28°24’14’’W; 2225 m amsl) on Pico Island of the Azores in the North Atlantic. Filter-collected aerosol during summer 2012 was analysed for organic and elemental carbon, and inorganic ions. The average aerosol ambient concentration was 0.9 µg m-3. Organic aerosol contributed the majority of mass (57%), followed by sulphate (21%) and nitrate (17%). Filter-collected aerosol was positively correlated with on-line aerosol measurements of black carbon, light scattering and number concentration. Water-soluble organic compounds (WSOC) from 9/24 and 9/25 samples collected during a pollution event were analysed with ultrahigh-resolution FT-ICR MS. FLEXPART analysis showed the air masses were very aged (>12 days). ~4000 molecular formulas were assigned to each of the mass spectra between m/z 100-1000. The majority of the assigned molecular formulas have unsaturated structures with CHO and CHNO elemental compositions. WSOC have an average O/C of ~0.45, relatively low compared to O/C of other aged aerosol, which might be the result of evaporation and fragmentation during long-range transport. The increase in aerosol loading during 9/24 was linked to biomass burning emissions from North America by FLEXPART and MODIS fire counts. This was confirmed with WSOC biomass burning markers and with the morphology and mixing state of particles as determined by SEM. The presence of markers characteristic of aqueous-phase reactions of biomass burning phenolic species suggests that the aerosol collected at Pico had undergone cloud processing. The air masses on 9/25 were more aged (~15 days) and influenced by marine emissions, as indicated by organosulphates and species characteristic for marine aerosol (e.g. fatty acids). The change in air masses for the two samples was corroborated by the changes in ozone, ethane, propane, morphology of particles, as well as by FLEXPART. In this presentation we will presents the first detailed molecular characterization of free tropospheric aged aerosol intercepted at the PMO.
Keywords: Atmospheric aerosol, Free troposphere, Mass spectrometry, Pico mountain observatory
Published in RUNG: 26.05.2021; Views: 2530; Downloads: 0
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