Development of a portable gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer embedded with a low-temperature adsorption thermal desorption module for enhanced detection of volatile organic compounds

A portable gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) is an effective instrument for rapid on-site detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Current instruments typically adsorb samples at ambient temperature, challenging the detection of low-boiling VOCs. In this study, a low-temperature adsorption thermal desorption method is proposed for sample enrichment in a portable GC-MS. The refrigeration module adopts a thermoelectric cooler (TEC), and a heating wire directly heats the adsorption tube to reduce the heat capacity. The miniaturization and low-power design make this module integrable into portable GC-MS devices. This module can reduce the temperature to around 0 °C within ten minutes for sample enrichment, and the heating system can increase the temperature to 260 °C within 20 seconds to ensure rapid desorption and injection of samples. Due to the miniaturization design, the total weight of the portable GC-MS is 21.7 kg, and the volume is 48 cm × 38 cm × 17 cm. Within merely 10 minutes, it completely separated and detected 65 VOCs in the TO-15 standard substance, with a detection limit down to 0.12 μg L-1 for toluene. The detection performance for low-boiling substances could be enhanced by up to 17 times compared to ambient temperature adsorption thermal desorption, such as 1,3-butadiene. Moreover, the results demonstrated long-term stability (RSD < 10% for 98% of the substances, with recovery rates from 91.66% to 109.12%). This study provides a feasible strategy for the rapid and reliable detection of VOCs in the air, holding great potential in the field of environmental monitoring.

Ozone depletion due to dust release of iodine in the free troposphere

Iodine is an atmospheric trace element emitted from oceans that efficiently destroys ozone (O₃). Low O₃ in airborne dust layers is frequently observed but poorly understood. We show that dust is a source of gas-phase iodine, indicated by aircraft observations of iodine monoxide (IO) radicals inside lofted dust layers from the Atacama and Sechura Deserts that are up to a factor of 10 enhanced over background. Gas-phase iodine photochemistry, commensurate with observed IO, is needed to explain the low O₃ inside these dust layers (below 15 ppbv; up to 75% depleted). The added dust iodine can explain decreases in O₃ of 8% regionally and affects surface air quality. Our data suggest that iodate reduction to form volatile iodine species is a missing process in the geochemical iodine cycle and presents an unrecognized aeolian source of iodine. Atmospheric iodine has tripled since 1950 and affects ozone layer recovery and particle formation.

Constraining remote oxidation capacity with ATom observations

The global oxidation capacity, defined as the tropospheric mean concentration of the hydroxyl radical (OH), controls the lifetime of reactive trace gases in the atmosphere such as methane and carbon monoxide (CO). Models tend to underestimate the methane lifetime and CO concentrations throughout the troposphere, which is consistent with excessive OH. Approximately half of the oxidation of methane and non-methane volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is thought to occur over the oceans where oxidant chemistry has received little validation due to a lack of observational constraints. We use observations from the first two deployments of the NASA ATom aircraft campaign during July-August 2016 and January-February 2017 to evaluate the oxidation capacity over the remote oceans and its representation by the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. The model successfully simulates the magnitude and vertical profile of remote OH within the measurement uncertainties. Comparisons against the drivers of OH production (water vapor, ozone, and NO y concentrations, ozone photolysis frequencies) also show minimal bias, with the exception of wintertime NO y . The severe model overestimate of NO y during this period may indicate insufficient wet scavenging and/or missing loss on sea-salt aerosols. Large uncertainties in these processes require further study to improve simulated NO y partitioning and removal in the troposphere, but preliminary tests suggest that their overall impact could marginally reduce the model bias in tropospheric OH. During the ATom-1 deployment, OH reactivity (OHR) below 3 km is significantly enhanced, and this is not captured by the sum of its measured components (cOHRobs) or by the model (cOHRmod). This enhancement could suggest missing reactive VOCs but cannot be explained by a comprehensive simulation of both biotic and abiotic ocean sources of VOCs. Additional sources of VOC reactivity in this region are difficult to reconcile with the full suite of ATom measurement constraints. The model generally reproduces the magnitude and seasonality of cOHRobs but underestimates the contribution of oxygenated VOCs, mainly acetaldehyde, which is severely underestimated throughout the troposphere despite its calculated lifetime of less than a day. Missing model acetaldehyde in previous studies was attributed to measurement uncertainties that have been largely resolved. Observations of peroxyacetic acid (PAA) provide new support for remote levels of acetaldehyde. The underestimate in both model acetaldehyde and PAA is present throughout the year in both hemispheres and peaks during Northern Hemisphere summer. The addition of ocean sources of VOCs in the model increases cOHRmod by 3% to 9% and improves model-measurement agreement for acetaldehyde, particularly in winter, but cannot resolve the model summertime bias. Doing so would require 100 Tg yr-1 of a long-lived unknown precursor throughout the year with significant additional emissions in the Northern Hemisphere summer. Improving the model bias for remote acetaldehyde and PAA is unlikely to fully resolve previously reported model global biases in OH and methane lifetime, suggesting that future work should examine the sources and sinks of OH over land.

Atmospheric Acetaldehyde: Importance of Air-Sea Exchange and a Missing Source in the Remote Troposphere

We report airborne measurements of acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) during the first and second deployments of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom). The budget of CH3CHO is examined using the Community Atmospheric Model with chemistry (CAM-chem), with a newly-developed online air-sea exchange module. The upper limit of the global ocean net emission of CH3CHO is estimated to be 34 Tg a-1 (42 Tg a-1 if considering bubble-mediated transfer), and the ocean impacts on tropospheric CH3CHO are mostly confined to the marine boundary layer. Our analysis suggests that there is an unaccounted CH3CHO source in the remote troposphere and that organic aerosols can only provide a fraction of this missing source. We propose that peroxyacetic acid (PAA) is an ideal indicator of the rapid CH3CHO production in the remote troposphere. The higher-than-expected CH3CHO measurements represent a missing sink of hydroxyl radicals (and halogen radical) in current chemistry-climate models.

A pervasive role for biomass burning in tropical high ozone/low water structures

Air parcels with mixing ratios of high O3 and low H2O (HOLW) are common features in the tropical western Pacific (TWP) mid-troposphere (300-700 hPa). Here, using data collected during aircraft sampling of the TWP in winter 2014, we find strong, positive correlations of O3 with multiple biomass burning tracers in these HOLW structures. Ozone levels in these structures are about a factor of three larger than background. Models, satellite data and aircraft observations are used to show fires in tropical Africa and Southeast Asia are the dominant source of high O3 and that low H2O results from large-scale descent within the tropical troposphere. Previous explanations that attribute HOLW structures to transport from the stratosphere or mid-latitude troposphere are inconsistent with our observations. This study suggest a larger role for biomass burning in the radiative forcing of climate in the remote TWP than is commonly appreciated.

Quantitative and qualitative sensing techniques for biogenic volatile organic compounds and their oxidation products

The physiological production mechanisms of some of the organics in plants, commonly known as biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), have been known for more than a century. Some BVOCs are emitted to the atmosphere and play a significant role in tropospheric photochemistry especially in ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) productions as a result of interplays between BVOCs and atmospheric radicals such as hydroxyl radical (OH), ozone (O3) and NOX (NO + NO2). These findings have been drawn from comprehensive analysis of numerous field and laboratory studies that have characterized the ambient distribution of BVOCs and their oxidation products, and reaction kinetics between BVOCs and atmospheric oxidants. These investigations are limited by the capacity for identifying and quantifying these compounds. This review highlights the major analytical techniques that have been used to observe BVOCs and their oxidation products such as gas chromatography, mass spectrometry with hard and soft ionization methods, and optical techniques from laser induced fluorescence (LIF) to remote sensing. In addition, we discuss how new analytical techniques can advance our understanding of BVOC photochemical processes. The principles, advantages, and drawbacks of the analytical techniques are discussed along with specific examples of how the techniques were applied in field and laboratory measurements. Since a number of thorough review papers for each specific analytical technique are available, readers are referred to these publications rather than providing thorough descriptions of each technique. Therefore, the aim of this review is for readers to grasp the advantages and disadvantages of various sensing techniques for BVOCs and their oxidation products and to provide guidance for choosing the optimal technique for a specific research task.

Tropospheric methanol observations from space: retrieval evaluation and constraints on the seasonality of biogenic emissions

Methanol retrievals from nadir-viewing space-based sensors offer powerful new information for quantifying methanol emissions on a global scale. Here we apply an ensemble of aircraft observations over North America to evaluate new methanol measurements from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) on the Aura satellite, and combine the TES data with observations from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the MetOp-A satellite to investigate the seasonality of methanol emissions from northern midlatitude ecosystems. Using the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model as an intercomparison platform, we find that the TES retrieval performs well when the degrees of freedom for signal (DOFS) are above 0.5, in which case the model:TES regressions are generally consistent with the model:aircraft comparisons. Including retrievals with DOFS below 0.5 degrades the comparisons, as these are excessively influenced by the a priori. The comparisons suggest DOFS >0.5 as a minimum threshold for interpreting retrievals of trace gases with a weak tropospheric signal. We analyze one full year of satellite observations and find that GEOS-Chem, driven with MEGANv2.1 biogenic emissions, underestimates observed methanol concentrations throughout the midlatitudes in springtime, with the timing of the seasonal peak in model emissions 1-2 months too late. We attribute this discrepancy to an underestimate of emissions from new leaves in MEGAN, and apply the satellite data to better quantify the seasonal change in methanol emissions for midlatitude ecosystems. The derived parameters (relative emission factors of 11.0, 0.26, 0.12 and 3.0 for new, growing, mature, and old leaves, respectively, plus a leaf area index activity factor of 0.5 for expanding canopies with leaf area index <1.2) provide a more realistic simulation of seasonal methanol concentrations in midlatitudes on the basis of both the IASI and TES measurements.

Demonstration of motionless Knudsen pump based micro-gas chromatography featuring micro-fabricated columns and on-column detectors

This paper reports the investigation of a micro-gas chromatography (μGC) system that utilizes an array of miniaturized motionless Knudsen pumps (KPs) as well as microfabricated separation columns and optical detectors. A prototype system was built to achieve a flow rate of 1 mL min(-1) and 0.26 mL min(-1) for helium and dry air, respectively, when they were used as carrier gas. This system was then employed to evaluate GC performance compromises and demonstrate the ability to separate and detect gas mixtures containing analytes of different volatilities and polarities. Furthermore, the use of pressure programming of the KP array was demonstrated to significantly shorten the analysis time while maintaining a high detection resolution. Using this method, we obtained a high resolution detection of 5 alkanes of different volatilities within 5 min. Finally, we successfully detected gas mixtures of various polarities using a tandem-column μGC configuration by installing two on-column optical detectors to obtain complementary chromatograms.

Determination of airborne carbonyls via pentafluorophenylhydrazine derivatisation by GC-MS and its comparison with HPLC method

The classical analytical method for gaseous carbonyl measurements based on solid sorbent coated with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) and analysis by HPLC/UV suffers from limited resolution of carbonyls with similar molecular structures and high molecular weights. In this paper, we report the development of a sensitive and reliable analytical method for simultaneous determination of 21 airborne carbonyls within the C(1)-C(9) range. Carbonyls were collected on a sampling tube filled with 100mg Tenax TA (60-80 mesh) sorbent coated with 1 μmol pentafluorophenyl hydrazine (PFPH), followed by solvent desorption and analysis by gas chromatography (GC)/mass spectrometry (MS). Common carbonyl gases including formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, butyraldehyde, hexaldehyde and benzaldehyde at ppbv levels were collected with efficiency greater than 90% onto sampling tubes at a flow rate of 100 mL min(-1). The limits of detection (LODs, signal/noise=3) of the tested carbonyls were in the range of 0.08-0.20 ppbv for a sampled volume of 24.0 L. These limits are less than or comparable with those that can be obtained using the DNPH-HPLC method. The method has been field-tested both in ambient air of York and in diluted cigarette smoke. Comparing field tests with the classical DNPH-HPLC method, good agreement was displayed between the two methods for the same carbonyls, but with more carbonyl species detected by the PFPH-GC/MS method. The PFPH-GC/MS method provides better molecular separation for carbonyls with similar structures, is highly sensitivity and gives confirmation of identification by structures when detected using MS.

The Inhibition of N2O5 Hydrolysis in Sulfuric Acid by 1-Butanol and 1-Hexanol Surfactant Coatings

Gas-liquid scattering experiments are used to measure the fraction of N2O5 molecules that are converted to HNO3 after colliding with 72 wt % H2SO4 containing 1-hexanol or 1-butanol at 216 K. These alcohols segregate to the surface of the acid, with saturation coverages estimated to be 60% of a close-packed monolayer for 1-hexanol and 44% of a close-packed monolayer for 1-butanol. We find that the alkyl films reduce the conversion of N2O5 to HNO3 from 0.15 on bare acid to 0.06 on the hexyl-coated acid and to 0.10 on the butyl-coated acid. The entry of HCl and HBr, however, is enhanced by the hexanol and butanol films. The hydrolysis of N2O5 may be inhibited because the alkyl chains restrict the transport of this large molecule and because the alcohol OH groups dilute the surface region, suppressing reaction between N2O5 and near-interfacial H3O+ or H2O. In contrast, the interfacial alcohol OH groups provide additional binding sites for HCl and HBr and help initiate ionization. These and previous scattering experiments indicate that short-chain alcohol surfactants impede or enhance sulfuric acid-mediated reactions in ways that depend on the chain length, liquid phase acidity, and nature of the gas molecule.

Measurements of volatile organic compounds in the earth's atmosphere using proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry

Proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) allows real-time measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air with a high sensitivity and a fast time response. The use of PTR-MS in atmospheric research has expanded rapidly in recent years, and much has been learned about the instrument response and specificity of the technique in the analysis of air from different regions of the atmosphere. This paper aims to review the progress that has been made. The theory of operation is described and allows the response of the instrument to be described for different operating conditions. More accurate determinations of the instrument response involve calibrations using standard mixtures, and some results are shown. Much has been learned about the specificity of PTR-MS from inter-comparison studies as well the coupling of PTR-MS with a gas chromatographic interface. The literature on this issue is reviewed and summarized for many VOCs of atmospheric interest. Some highlights of airborne measurements by PTR-MS are presented, including the results obtained in fresh and aged forest-fire and urban plumes. Finally, the recent work that is focused on improving the technique is discussed.