A novel approach for apportionment between primary and secondary sources of airborne nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs)

Publication date: August 2016
Source:Atmospheric Environment, Volume 138
Author(s): Yan Lin, Xinghua Qiu, Yiqiu Ma, Junxia Wang, Yusheng Wu, Limin Zeng, Min Hu, Tong Zhu, Yifang Zhu
Nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs) are strong environmental mutagens and carcinogens originating from both primary emissions and secondary reactions in the atmosphere. The sources and the toxicity of different NPAH species could vary greatly; therefore a specie-specific source apportionment is essential to evaluate their health risks and to formulate controlling regulations. However, few studies have reported source apportionment of NPAHs species to date. In this study, we developed an easy-to-perform method for the apportionment of primary versus secondary sources of airborne NPAHs based on the relationship between NPAHs and NO2. After log-transformation of both NPAHs and NO2 concentrations, a slope of β between these two variables was obtained by the linear regression. When β is significantly smaller than 1, it indicates primary emissions while β significantly greater than 1 suggests secondary formation. We have validated this method with data previously collected in Beijing. A good correlation, with R value of 0.57, was observed between results produced by this new method and by Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). The correlation could be further improved (R = 0.71) if the gas/particle partition of NPAHs is taken into consideration. This developed method enables the source apportionment for individual NPAHs species and could be used to validate the results of other receptor models.

Graphical abstract

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