Using the 13C/12C carbon isotope ratio to characterise the emission sources of airborne particulate matter: a review of literature

A multi-analytical approach for the identification of pollutant sources on black crust samples: Stable isotope ratio of carbon, sulphur, and oxygen

This study is focused on the identification of pollutant sources on black crust (BC) samples from the Monumental Cemetery of Milan (Italy), through a multi-analytical approach based on the determination of stable isotope ratios of carbon, sulphur, and oxygen. Six black crust samples, mainly developed on marble sculptures over a time span of 100-150 years, were analysed. For the first time, δ13C was measured for BC samples: δ13C values of the pulverized samples (from -1.2 to +1.3 ‰) are very close to the values obtained from the carbonate matrix, whereas after the removal of the matrix through acidification, δ13C values of BC samples from Milan range from -27.2 to -22.1 ‰, with no significant variation between samples with different ratios of organic carbon to elemental carbon. In sum, the δ13C values obtained for all BC samples fall within the range of anthropogenic emissions such as vehicle traffic, coal combustion and industrial emissions. δ34S and δ18O values of sulphate from BC samples range from -6.3 to +7.0 ‰ and from +7.6 to +10.5 ‰, respectively. Coupling the analysis of the oxygen isotope ratio with that of sulphur enables a more precise identification of the origin of sulphates: the observed isotopic composition falls in the range typical for anthropogenic emission of sulphur dioxide. Overall, in this study, C, S and O isotopes were combined for the first time to assess pollutant sources on black crust samples: this multi-stable isotope approach allowed to show that the BC formation on monuments from the Monumental Cemetery of Milan mostly results from anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuels combustion by road vehicles and factories, as well as domestic heating.

Source attribution of carbonaceous fraction of particulate matter in the urban atmosphere based on chemical and carbon isotope composition

Air quality is of large concern in the city of Krakow, southern Poland. A comprehensive study was launched by us in which two PM fractions (PM1 and PM10) were sampled during 1-year campaign, lasting from April 21, 2018 to March 19, 2019. A suite of modern analytical methods was used to characterize the chemical composition of the collected samples. The contents of 14 sugars, sugar alcohols and anhydrosugars, 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, selected metals and non-metals and ions were analyzed, in addition to organic and elemental carbon content. The carbon isotope composition in both analysed PM fractions, combined with an isotope-mass balance method, allowed to distinguish three main components of carbonaceous emissions in the city: (1) emissions related to combustion of hard coal, (2) emissions related to road transport, and (3) biogenic emissions. The heating season emissions from coal combustion had the biggest contribution to the reservoir of carbonaceous aerosols in the PM10 fraction (44%) and, together with the biogenic emission, they were the biggest contributors to the PM1 fraction (41% and 44%, respectively). In the non-heating season, the dominant source of carbon in PM10 and PM1 fraction were the biogenic emissions (48 and 54%, respectively).

Source apportionment of suspended particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10) collected in road and tram tunnels in Krakow, Poland

Here, we present the results of a comprehensive study of air quality in two tunnels located in the city of Krakow, southern Poland. The study comprised three PM fractions of suspended particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10) sampled during campaigns lasting from March 14 to April 24, 2016 and from June 28 to July 18, 2016, in the road tunnel and the tram tunnel, respectively. The collected samples had undergone comprehensive chemical, elemental and carbon isotope analyses. The results of these analyses gave the basis for better characterization of urban transport as a source of air pollution in the city. The concentrations of particulate matter varied, depending on the analysed PM fraction and the place of sampling. For the tram tunnel, the average concentrations were 53.2 µg·m-3 (PM1), 73.8 µg·m-3 (PM2.5), 96.5 µg·m-3 (PM10), to be compared with 44.2 µg·m-3, 137.7 µg·m-3, 221.5 µg·m-3, respectively, recorded in the road tunnel. The isotope-mass balance calculations carried out separately for the road and tram tunnel and for each PM fraction, revealed that 60 to 79% of carbon present in the samples collected in the road tunnel was associated with road transport, to be compared with 15-33% obtained in the tram tunnel. The second in importance were biogenic emissions (17-21% and 41-49% in the road and tram tunnel, respectively. Sixteen different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been identified in the analysed samples. As expected, much higher concentrations of PAHs were detected in the road tunnel when compared to the tram tunnel. Based on the analysed PAHs concentrations, health risk assessment was determined using 3 different types of indicators: carcinogenic equivalent (CEQ), mutagenic equivalent (MEQ) and toxic equivalent (TEQ).

Unraveling the sources of atmospheric organic aerosols over the Arabian Sea: Insights from the stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition

The isotopic composition of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) in marine aerosols influenced by the continental outflows are useful proxies for understanding the aging and secondary formation processes. Every winter, the haze pollutants transported from South Asia significantly affect the chemical composition of marine atmospheric boundary layer of the Arabian Sea. Here, we assessed the δ¹³C of total carbon (TC) and δ¹⁵N of total nitrogen (TN) in marine aerosols collected over the Arabian Sea during a winter cruise (6-24 December 2018). TC (2.1-13.4 μg m^-3) is strongly correlated with TN (0.9-5.0 μg m^-3), likely because of their common source-emissions, biomass burning and fossil-fuel combustion in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and South Asia (corroborated by backward-air mass trajectories and satellite fire counts). Besides, the linear relationship between the mass ratios of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) to TC (0.04-0.65) and δ¹³C_TC (-25.1‰ to -22.9‰) underscores the importance of aging process. This means oxidation of organic aerosols during transport not only influences the WSOC levels but also affects their δ¹³C_TC. Likewise, the prevalent inverse linear relationship between the equivalent mass ratio of (NH₄⁺/non-sea-salt- or nss-SO₄^2-) and δ¹⁵N_TN (+15.3‰ to +25.1‰) emphasizes the overall significance of neutralization reactions between major acidic ([nss-SO₄^2-] ≫ [NO₃^-]) and alkaline species (NH₄⁺) in aerosols. Higher δ¹⁵N_TN values in winter than the spring inter-monsoon clearly emphasizes the significance of the anthropogenic combustion sources (i.e., biomass burning) in the South Asian outflow. A comparison of δ¹³C_TC and δ¹⁵N_TN with the source emissions revealed that crop-residue burning emissions followed by the coal fired power plants mostly dictate the atmospheric abundance of organic aerosols in the wider South Asian outflow.

Saccharides as Particulate Matter Tracers of Biomass Burning: A Review

The adverse effects of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) on health and ecosystems, as well as on meteorology and climate change, are well known to the scientific community. It is therefore undeniable that a good understanding of the sources of PM is crucial for effective control of emissions and to protect public health. One of the major contributions to atmospheric PM is biomass burning, a practice used both in agriculture and home heating, which can be traced and identified by analyzing sugars emitted from the combustion of cellulose and hemicellulose that make up biomass. In this review comparing almost 200 selected articles, we highlight the most recent studies that broaden such category of tracers, covering research publications on residential wood combustions, open-fire or combustion chamber burnings and ambient PM in different regions of Asia, America and Europe. The purpose of the present work is to collect data in the literature that indicate a direct correspondence between biomass burning and saccharides emitted into the atmosphere with regard to distinguishing common sugars attributed to biomass burning from those that have co-causes of issue. In this paper, we provide a list of 24 compounds, including those most commonly recognized as biomass burning tracers (i.e., levoglucosan, mannosan and galactosan), from which it emerges that monosaccharide anhydrides, sugar alcohols and primary sugars have been widely reported as organic tracers for biomass combustion, although it has also been shown that emissions of these compounds depend not only on combustion characteristics and equipment but also on fuel type, combustion quality and weather conditions. Although it appears that it is currently not possible to define a single compound as a universal indicator of biomass combustion, this review provides a valuable tool for the collection of information in the literature and identifies analytes that can lead to the determination of patterns for the distribution between PM generated by biomass combustion.

13C signatures of aerosol organic and elemental carbon from major combustion sources in China compared to worldwide estimates

Carbon isotope signatures are used to gain insight into sources and atmospheric processing of carbonaceous aerosols. Since elemental carbon (EC) is chemically stable, it is possible to apportion the main sources of EC (C3/C4 plant burning, coal combustion, and traffic emissions) using a dual ¹⁴C-¹³C isotope approach. The dual-isotope source apportionment crucially relies on accurate knowledge of ¹³C source signatures, which are seldom measured for EC. In this work, we present ¹³C signatures of organic carbon (OC) and EC for relevant sources in China. EC was isolated for ¹³C analysis based on the OC/EC split point of a thermal-optical method (EUSAAR_2 protocol). A series of sensitivity studies were conducted to investigate the EC separation and the relationship of the thermal-optical method to other EC isolation methods. Our results show that, first, the ¹³C signatures of raw materials and EC related to traffic emissions can be separated into three groups according to geographical location. Second, the ¹³C signature of OC emitted by the flaming combustion of C4 plants is strongly depleted in ¹³C compared to the source materials, and therefore EC is a better tracer for this source than total carbon (TC). A comprehensive literature review of ¹³C source signatures (of raw materials, of TC, and of EC isolated using a variety of thermal methods) was conducted. Accordingly, we recommend composite ¹³C source signatures of EC with uncertainties and detailed application conditions. Using these source signatures of EC in an example dual-isotope source apportionment study shows an improvement in precision. In addition, ¹³C signatures of OC were measured at three different desorption temperatures roughly corresponding to semi-volatile, low-volatile, and non-volatile OC fractions. Each source category shows a characteristic trend of ¹³C signatures with desorption temperature, which is likely related to different OC formation processes during combustion.

Comparison of PM10 Sources at Traffic and Urban Background Sites Based on Elemental, Chemical and Isotopic Composition: Case Study from Krakow, Southern Poland

In large urban agglomerations, car traffic is one of the main sources of particulate matter. It consists of particulate matter directly generated in the process of incomplete liquid fuel burning in vehicle engine, secondary aerosols formed from exhaust gaseous pollutants (NOx, SO2) as well as products of tires, brake pads and pavement abrasion. Krakow is one of the cities in Europe with the highest concentrations of particulate matter. The article presents the results of combined elemental, chemical and isotopic analyses of particulate matter PM10 at two contrasting urban environments during winter and summer seasons. Daily PM10 samples were collected during the summer and winter seasons of 2018/2019 at two stations belonging to the network monitoring air quality in the city. Mean PM10 concentrations at traffic-dominated stations were equal to 35 ± 7 µg/m3 and 76 ± 28 µg/m3 in summer and winter, respectively, to be compared with 25.6 ± 5.7 µg/m3 and 51 ± 25 µg/m3 in summer and winter, respectively, recorded at the urban background station. The source attribution of analyzed PM10 samples was carried out using two modeling approaches: (i) The Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) method for elemental and chemical composition (concentrations of elements, ions, as well as organic and elemental carbon in daily PM10 samples), and (ii) Isotope Mass Balance (IMB) for 13C and 14C carbon isotope composition of carbonaceous fraction of PM10. For PMF application, five sources of particulate matter were identified for each station: fossil fuel combustion, secondary inorganic aerosols, traffic exhaust, soil, and the fifth source which included road dust, industry, construction work. The IMB method allowed the partitioning of the total carbon reservoir of PM10 into carbon originating from coal combustion, from biogenic sources (natural emissions and biomass burning) and from traffic. Both apportionment methods were applied together for the first time in the Krakow agglomeration and they gave consistent results.

Application of Natural Carbon Isotopes for Emission Source Apportionment of Carbonaceous Particulate Matter in Urban Atmosphere: A Case Study from Krakow, Southern Poland

Successful mitigation of air pollution in large cities requires information about the structure of emission sources and their contribution to total atmospheric load. The presented research demonstrates a possibility of application of isotope tracers for the estimation of contribution of different sources to the carbonaceous fraction of PM2.5 (Particulate Matter containing fraction below 2.5 μm) collected in the urban atmosphere of Krakow, Poland during the summer and winter seasons. Isotope mass balance approach was used to perform source apportionment analysis for those two seasons. The analysis showed that the dominant source of the carbonaceous fraction of PM2.5 in Krakow is coal burning during the winter season and biogenic emissions during the summer season. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the uncertainty of the percentage contribution of different sources to the overall carbon load of the analyzed PM2.5 fraction is in order of a few percent.

A global view of isotopic effects on ro-vibrational spectra of six-atomic molecules: a case study of eleven ethylene species

In this work, we present a global view of the impact of isotopic substitutions on the spectra of eleven ethylene isotopologues obtained from variational calculations using accurate ab initio potential energy and dipole moment surfaces. This may lead to some important changes in the molecular spectra due to symmetry breaking effects lowering the initial D_2h symmetry of ¹²C₂H₄ ([triple bond, length as m-dash]¹²CH₂¹²CH₂) to C_2v, C_2h or C_s. For the very first time, we report ab initio predictions for ¹²C₂D₄ ([triple bond, length as m-dash]¹²CD₂¹²CD₂) and three C_s species: ¹²CHD¹³CH₂, ¹³CHD¹²CH₂ and ¹²C₂HD₃ ([triple bond, length as m-dash]¹²CD₂¹²CHD). To this end, we have considered the normal-mode approach based on our reduced Eckart-Watson Hamiltonian combined with ethylene ab initio surfaces. This work will contribute to the complete theoretical studies of the deuterated and ¹³C-enriched ethylene isotopologues. A total of 1252 vibrational levels are computed and all the corresponding transitions in the energy range of ≤3100 cm^-1 are predicted and compared to 151 bands assigned from experimental spectra analyses.