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| Titel |
Ground measurements of carboxylic acids during the ChArMEx field campaign using PTR-ToFMS |
| VerfasserIn |
Sébastien Dusanter, Stéphane Sauvage, Nadine Locoge, Vincent Michoud, Nabil Touati, Shouwen Zhang, Véronique Riffault |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250094242
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-9641.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Carboxylic acids are long-lived and persistent species that have been shown to be important for ambient acidity and secondary organic aerosol formation. Formic, acetic, and propionic acids are among the most abundant carboxylic acids in the troposphere. However, their atmospheric sources are poorly characterized due to limited measurement data. Techniques usually used to measure gas-phase concentrations of carboxylic acids suffer from low time resolution and the use of fast instruments would be of prime interest to apportion the contribution of anthropogenic and biogenic emissions, as well as photochemical processes to the carboxylic acid budget.
A Proton Transfer Reaction Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (PTR-ToFMS) was characterized for field measurements of n-carboxylic acids (C1-C4). Laboratory experiments were carried out to get insights into fragmentation patterns of parent (RCOOHH+) and acylium (RCO+) ions, sensitivities, and detection limits under various operating conditions. Carefully designed experiments were conducted to assess the impact of relative humidity on the sensitivity. Detection limits of 500, 90, 50 and 40 ppt were achieved for 10-min measurements of formic, acetic, propionic and butyric acids, respectively.
This instrument was deployed for the first time during the 2013 ChArMEx intensive field campaign at a ground site in Cap Corsica and successfully measured concentrations of carboxylic acids from July 15th to August 5th. Elevated mixing ratios in the range 500-4000 ppt, 260-2500 ppt, and 50-500 ppt were observed for formic, acetic, and propionic acids, respectively. Mixing ratios of butyric acids were close to the detection limit. In this presentation, we will discuss the potential of carboxylic acid measurements by PTR-ToFMS in remote areas and we will provide a preliminary analysis of carboxylic acid sources in an area impacted by local biogenic emissions as well as aged anthropogenic air masses. |
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