Source Apportionment of Carbonaceous Particulate Matter in a Shanghai Suburb Based on Carbon Isotope Composition

In this article, a new approach was established to estimate the fractional contributions of soil dust, biomass burning, biogenic emissions, coal burning, and vehicle exhaust to the carbonaceous particulate matter by carbon isotope and linear regression techniques of OC-K+ (organic carbon) and OC-EC (elemental carbon). Using the method described herein, the fractional distributions of these sources were quantitatively determined for the OC and semiquantitatively for the EC in the size-resolved particles (size ranges: <0.49, 0.49-0.95, 0.95-1.5, 1.5-3.0, 3.0-7.2, and >7.2m) collected in Jiading District, a suburb of Shanghai, China. Distinct size distribution of contributions of these sources to the OC and EC was observed. Generally, biomass burning contributed a large fraction to OC in the smaller particles and biogenic emissions shared a bigger fraction to OC in the larger particles. Soil dust made contributions solely to the OC, for no EC fraction was found in the soil dust. OC from coal burning concentrated in the fine particles (smaller than 3.0m), and that from vehicle exhaust exhibited bimodal distribution, with peaks for both fine and coarse particles. The fossil sources dominated EC in almost all the size ranges. Though a few deviations are brought about in the calculation, this approach provides an effective way to distinguish the sources of the carbonaceous particulate matter. Copyright 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research