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Abstract: Port cities are affected by a wide array of emissions, including those from the shipping, road transport, and residential sectors; therefore, the characterization and apportionment of such sources in a high temporal resolution is crucial. This study presents measurements of fine aerosol chemical composition in Piraeus, one of the largest European ports, during two monthly periods (winter vs. summer) in 2018–2019, using online instrumentation (Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor—ACSM, 7-λ aethalometer). PMF source apportionment was performed on the ACSM mass spectra to quantify organic aerosol (OA) components, while equivalent black carbon (BC) was decomposed to its fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning (BB) fractions. The combined traffic, shipping and, especially, residential emissions led to considerably elevated submicron aerosol levels (22.8 μg m−3) in winter, which frequently became episodic late at night under stagnant conditions. Carbonaceous compounds comprised the major portion of this submicron aerosol in winter, with mean OA and BC contributions of 61% (13.9 μg m−3) and 16% (3.7 μg m−3), respectively. The contribution of BB to BC concentrations was considerable and spatially uniform. OA related to BB emissions (fresh and processed) and hydrocarbon-like OA (from vehicular traffic and port-related fossil fuel emissions including shipping) accounted for 37% and 30% of OA, respectively. In summer, the average PM1 concentration was significantly lower (14.8 μg m−3) and less variable, especially for the components associated with secondary aerosols (such as OA and sulfate). The effect of the port sector was evident in summer and maintained BC concentrations at high levels (2.8 μg m−3), despite the absence of BB and improved atmospheric dispersion. Oxygenated components yielded over 70% of OA in summer, with the more oxidized secondary component of regional origin being dominant (41%) despite the intensity of local sources, in the Piraeus environment. In general, with respect to local sources that can be the target of mitigation policies, this work highlights the importance of port-related activities but also reveals the extensive wintertime impact of residential wood burning. While a separation of the BB source is feasible, more research is needed on how to disentangle the short-term effects of different fossil-fuel combustion sources.
Keywords: Athens, harbor, shipping emissions, PM1, chemical speciation, organic aerosol, black carbon, ACSM, aethalometer, PMF
Published in RUNG: 10.05.2024; Views: 11; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: Abstract. The offline aerosol mass spectrometry technique is a useful tool for the source apportionment of organic aerosol (OA) in areas and periods during which an aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) is not available. However, the technique is based on the extraction of aerosol samples in water, while several atmospheric OA components are partially or fully insoluble in water. In this work an improved offline technique was developed and evaluated in an effort to capture most of the partially soluble and insoluble organic aerosol material, reducing significantly the uncertainty of the corresponding source apportionment. A major advantage of the proposed approach is that no corrections are needed for the offline analysis to account for the limited water solubility of some OA components. The improved offline AMS analysis was tested in three campaigns: two during winter and one during summer. Collocated online AMS measurements were performed for the evaluation of the offline method. Source apportionment analysis was performed separately for the online and the offline measurements using positive matrix factorization (PMF). The PMF results showed that the fractional contribution of each factor to the total OA differed between the online and the offline PMF results by less than 15 %. The differences in the AMS spectra of the factors of the two approaches could be significant, suggesting that the use of factor profiles from the literature in the offline analysis may lead to complications. Part of the good agreement between the online and the offline PMF results is due to the ability of the improved offline AMS technique to capture a bigger part of the OA, including insoluble organic material. This was evident by the significant fraction of submicrometer suspended insoluble particles present in the water extract and by the reduced insoluble material on the filters after the extraction process. More than half of the elemental carbon (EC) was on average missing from the filters after the water extraction. Significant EC concentrations were measured in the produced aerosol that was used as input to the AMS during the offline analysis.
Keywords: organic aerosol, receptor modeling, offline PMF, Greece
Published in RUNG: 10.05.2024; Views: 11; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: Offline aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) measurements can provide valuable information about ambient organic aerosols in areas and periods in which online AMS measurements are not available. However, these offline measurements have a low temporal resolution, as they are based on filter samples usually collected over 24 h. In this study, we examine whether and how this low time resolution affects source apportionment results. We used a five-month period (November 2016–March 2017) of online measurements in Athens, Greece, and performed positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis to both the original dataset, which consists of 30 min measurements, and to time averages from 1 up to 24 h. The 30 min results indicated that five factors were able to represent the ambient organic aerosol (OA): a biomass burning organic aerosol factor (BBOA), which contributed 16 % of the total OA; hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA) (29 %); cooking OA (COA) (20 %); more-oxygenated OA (MO-OOA) (18 %); and less-oxygenated OA (LO-OOA) (17 %). Use of the daily averages resulted in estimated average contributions that were within 8 % of the total OA compared with the high-resolution analysis for the five-month period. The most important difference was for the BBOA contribution, which was overestimated (25 % for low resolution versus 17 % for high resolution) when daily averages were used. The estimated secondary OA varied from 35 % to 28 % when the averaging interval varied between 30 min and 24 h. The high-resolution results are expected to be more accurate, both because they are based on much larger datasets and because they are based on additional information about the temporal source variability. The error for the low-resolution analysis was much higher for individual days, and its results for high-concentration days in particular are quite uncertain. The low-resolution analysis introduces errors in the determined AMS profiles for the BBOA and LO-OOA factors but determines the rest relatively accurately (theta angle around 10∘ or less).
Keywords: AMS, offline PMF, ACSM, organic aerosols
Published in RUNG: 10.05.2024; Views: 11; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: The evolution of fine aerosol (PM1) species as well as the contribution of potential sources to the total organic aerosol (OA) at an urban background site in Barcelona, in the western Mediterranean basin (WMB) was investigated. For this purpose, a quadrupole aerosol chemical speciation monitor (Q-ACSM) was deployed to acquire real-time measurements for two 1-year periods: May 2014–May 2015 (period A) and September 2017–October 2018 (period B). Total PM1 concentrations showed a slight decrease (from 10.1 to 9.6 μgm�3 from A to B), although the relative contribution of inorganic and organic compounds varied significantly. Regarding inorganic compounds, SO42- , black carbon(BC) and NH4+ showed a significant decrease from period A to B (21 %, 18% and 9 %, respectively), whilst NO3- concentrations were higher in B (8 %). Source apportionment revealed OA contained 46% and 70% secondary OA (SOA) in periods A and B, respectively. Two secondary oxygenated OA sources (OOA) were differentiated by their oxidation status (i.e. ageing): less oxidized (LO-OOA) and more oxidized (MO-OOA). Disregarding winter periods, when LO-OOA production was not favoured, LO-OOA transformation into MO-OOA was found to be more effective in period B. The lowest LO-OOA-to-MO-OOA ratio, excluding winter, was in September–October 2018 (0.65), implying an accumulation of aged OA after the high temperature and solar radiation conditions in the summer season. In addition to temperature, SOA (sum of OOA factors) was enhanced by exposure to NOx-polluted ambient and other pollutants, especially to O3 and during afternoon hours. The anthropogenic primary OA sources identified, cooking-related OA (COA), hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA), and biomass burning OA (BBOA), decreased from period A to B in both absolute concentrations and relative contribution (as a whole, 44% and 30 %, respectively). However, their concentrations and proportion to OA grew rapidly during highly polluted episodes. The influence of certain atmospheric episodes on OA sources was also assessed. Both SOA factors were boosted with long- and medium-range circulations, especially those coming from inland Europe and the Mediterranean (triggering mainly MO-OOA) and summer breeze-driven regional circulation (mainly LO-OOA). In contrast, POA was enhanced either during air-renewal episodes or stagnation anticyclonic events.
Keywords: aerosol, organic aerosol, source apportionment, PM1, particulate matter
Published in RUNG: 10.05.2024; Views: 11; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: Sewage sludge has fertilizer properties and can supply a large amount of necessary nutrients to the crops, because it is full of organic matter, carbon, nitrogen and other nutrients, but on the other hand, it also contains a lot of toxic compounds, derived from its origin, such as heavy metals, antibiotics and microplastics. Effective microorganisms are a collection of naturally occurring beneficial microorganisms that are able to coexist and are commonly used in agriculture and gardening to improve plant performance and production. In this study, increasing concentrations of sewage sludge alone and added with effective microorganisms were evaluated in a short exposure on Lepidium sativum L. Parameters that were evaluated are: (i) percentage inhibition of germination, (ii) root length, (iii) biomass, (iv) soil pH, (v) total organic carbon and nitrogen both at soil and at root level. Results carried out from our experiment highlighted that effective microorganisms when coupled with sludge are able to restore biometric parameters by resetting seeds germinability inhibition and improving root elongation more than 50% when compared with plants added only with sludge, restoring the values almost of those to the control plants, as well as for soil pH values. Total organic carbon and total nitrogen are boosted at soil level almost at 50% when compared with the same concentrations added only with sludge, while at root level they appear decreased only in plants directly added with sludge treated with effective microorganisms
Keywords: sewage sludge, effective microorganism, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, germinability, short plants exposure, acute toxicity, biomass, pH
Published in RUNG: 12.04.2024; Views: 302; Downloads: 0
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