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In recent years low molecular weight alkylamines have been recognized to play an important role in particle formation and growth in the lower atmosphere. However, major uncertainties are associated with their atmospheric processes, sources and sinks, mostly due to the lack of ambient measurements and the difficulties in accurate quantification of alkylamines at trace level. In this study, we present the evaluation and optimization of two analytical approaches, i.e., gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and ion chromatography (IC), for the determination of alkylamines in aerosol particles. Alkylamines were converted to carbamates through derivatization with isobutyl chloroformate for GCMS determination. A set of parameters affecting the analytical performances of the GC-MS approach, including reagent amount, reaction time and pH value, was evaluated and optimized. The accuracy is 84.3-99.1 %, and the limits of detection obtained are 1.8-3.9 pg (or 0.02-0.04 ngm-3). For the IC approach, a solid-phase extraction (SPE) column was used to separate alkylamines from interfering cations before IC analysis. 1-2% (v/v) of acetone (or 2-4% (v/v) of acetonitrile) was added to the eluent to improve the separation of alkylamines on the IC column. The limits of detection obtained are 2.1-15.9 ng (or 0.9-6.4 ngm-3), and the accuracy is 55.1-103.4 %. The lower accuracy can be attributed to evaporation losses of amines during the sample concentration procedure. Measurements of ambient aerosol particle samples collected in Hong Kong show that the GC-MS approach is superior to the IC approach for the quantification of primary and secondary alkylamines due to its lower detection limits and higher accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass burning (BB) is a major source of aerosols and black carbon, thereby exerting an important impact on climate and air quality. Levoglucosan is the most well-recognized organic marker compound of BB and has been used to quantitatively assess BB's contribution to ambient aerosols. However, little is known about levoglucosan's evaporation under atmospheric conditions, primarily due to the uncertainty of its effective saturation vapor concentration ( C *) and its unknown activity coefficient (γ), in the complex BB emission matrix. Here, we utilized a thermodenuder to investigate the evaporation of levoglucosan from mixtures with polyethylene glycol (PEG) or BB primary organic aerosol (BBPOA) matrices, respectively. We estimate a pure component log 10 ( C */[μg m -3 ]) of levoglucosan of 1.1 ± 0.1 at 298 K. We reveal that levoglucosan mixed with PEG or BBPOA becomes more volatile than when treated as a single component due to nonideal molecular interactions. Considering that phase separation might occur in such systems, we term γ apparent activity coefficient (γ a ). We estimate log 10 C * and γ a of levoglucosan in BBPOA of 1.8 ± 0.1 and 3.8 ± 0.3, assuming a liquid phase state. Consequently, γ a must be considered to avoid significant underestimation of levoglucosan evaporation via gas-particle partitioning during transport., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)