ABSTRACT
Carbonaceous aerosols represent an important nexus between air pollution and climate change. Here we collected filter-based PM2.5 samples during summer and autumn in 2015 at one urban and two rural sites in Guangzhou, a megacity in southern China, and got the light absorption by black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) resolved with a DRI Model 2015 multi-wavelength thermal/optical carbon analyzer apart from determining the organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) contents. On average BrC contributed 12-15% of the measured absorption at 405nm (LA405) during summer and 15-19% during autumn with significant increase in the LA405 by BrC at the rural sites. Carbonaceous aerosols, identified as total carbon (TC), yielded average mass absorption efficiency at 405nm (MAE405) that were approximately 45% higher in autumn than in summer, an 83% increase was noted in the average MAE405 for OC, compared with an increase of only 14% in the average MAE405 for EC. The LA405 by BrC showed a good correlation (p<0.001) with the ratios of secondary OC to PM2.5 in summer. However, this correlation was poor (p>0.1) in autumn, implying greater secondary formation of BrC in summer. The correlations between levoglucosan (a marker of biomass burning) and the LA405 by BrC were significant during autumn but insignificant during summer, suggesting that the observed increase in the LA405 by BrC during autumn in rural areas was largely related to biomass burning. The measurements of light absorption at 550nm presented in this study indicated that the use of the IMPROVE algorithm with an MAE value of 10m2/g for EC to approximate light absorption may be appropriate in areas not strongly affected by fossil fuel combustion; however, this practice would underestimate the absorption of light by PM2.5 in areas heavily affected by vehicle exhausts and coal burning.
ABSTRACT
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) samples were collected and analyzed for the surface coating processes of aluminum products in Foshan. The concentration levels of VOCs from solvent-based coating (63.90-149.67 mg·m-3) are much higher than that from water-based, electrophoretic, and powder coating (2.99-21.93 mg·m-3). With respect to the VOC composition, aromatics are the main VOC group of solvent-based coating emission, ranging from 52.32%-71.55%. Typical species include toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and ethyl acetate. The VOCs emitted from water-based coating are mainly oxygenated VOCs, such as ethyl acetate (48.59%) and tetrahydrofuran (8.43%), while the percentage of aromatics (11.32%) is lower than that of solvent-based coating. Isopropanol is the most abundant species of electrophoretic coating emissions, accounting for up to 81.19% of the VOCs. The major VOC compounds of powder coating processes are acetone (30.25%), propane (15.48%), ethylene (12.15%), ethane (9.35%), and n-butane (5.16%). The calculation of the ozone formation potential (OFP) shows that the solvent-based coating has the highest OFP (3.89 g·g-1), followed by powder coating (2.53 g·g-1), while water-based and electrophoretic coating have lower OFPs (1.31 and 0.85 g·g-1, respectively). The most important contributor to OFP of solvent-based coating are aromatics, especially C7-C10 aromatics. The major contributors of water-based coating are ethyl acetate, m/p-xylenes, and toluene, with contributions of 23.24%, 21.76%, and 17.07%, respectively. The key reactive components of powder coating are ethylene, propene, and 1-butene; the sum of alkenes accounts for 71.11% of the OFP. With respect to the contribution of VOCs emitted from electrophoretic coating to the OFP, the percentage of isopropanol (65.08%) is significantly larger than that of other species (<6%).
