Optimization of a Method for the Detection of Biomass-Burning Relevant VOCs in Urban Areas Using Thermal Desorption Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry

Details

• Journal Title:
  Atmosphere
• Personal Author:
  Chandra, Boggarapu Praphulla ; McClure, Crystal D. ; Mulligan, JoAnne ; Jaffe, Daniel A.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Description:
  Forest fire smoke influence in urban areas is relatively easy to detect at high concentrations but more challenging to detect at low concentrations. In this study, we present a simplified method that can reliably quantify smoke tracers in an urban environment at relatively low cost and complexity. For this purpose, we used dual-bed thermal desorption tubes with an auto-sampler to collect continuous samples of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We present the validation and evaluation of this approach using thermal desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS) to detect VOCs at ppt to ppb concentrations. To evaluate the method, we tested stability during storage, interferences (e.g., water and O-3), and reproducibility for reactive and short-lived VOCs such as acetonitrile (a specific chemical tracer for biomass burning), acetone, n-pentane, isopentane, benzene, toluene, furan, acrolein, 2-butanone, 2,3-butanedione, methacrolein, 2,5- dimethylfuran, and furfural. The results demonstrate that these VOCs can be quantified reproducibly with a total uncertainty of <= 30% between the collection and analysis, and with storage times of up to 15 days. Calibration experiments performed over a dynamic range of 10-150 ng loaded on to each thermal desorption tube at different relative humidity showed excellent linearity (r(2) >= 0.90). We utilized this method during the summer 2019 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment-Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) intensive experiment at the Boise ground site. The results of this field study demonstrate the method's applicability for ambient VOC speciation to identify forest fire smoke in urban areas.
• Keywords:
  Air Quality Wildfires Air Quality
• Source:
  Atmosphere, 11(3), 276
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11030276
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA17OAR431001
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:e93ef70d18f1aba2f4ab317964501a103ccc1cc058d8c87b43c9f53584ad3c34
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/51211/noaa_51211_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.34 MB ]