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Particle size is one of the key parameters of aerosol particles affecting their climate and health effects. Therefore, a better understanding of the particle size distributions from different sources is crucial. In urban environments, aerosols are produced in a large number of varying processes, and conditions. This study aims to increase the knowledge of urban aerosol sources using a novel approach to positive matrix factorization (PMF). The particle source profiles are detected in particle number size distribution data measured simultaneously at nearby a street canyon and an urban background station between February 2015 and June 2019 in Helsinki southern Finland. The data is combined into one file so that the data from both stations has the same timestamps. Then PMF finds profiles for the unified data. A total of five different aerosol sources were found. Four of them were detected at both stations: slightly aged traffic (TRA2), secondary combustion aerosol (SCA), secondary aerosol (SecA), and long-range transported aerosol (LRT). One of the sources, fresh traffic was only detected at a street canyon. The factors were identified based on available auxiliary data. This work implies that traffic-related aerosols remain important in urban environments and that aerosol sources can be detected by using only particle number size distribution data as input in the positive matrix factorization method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung deposited surface area (LDSA) is a relatively new metric that has been argued to be more accurate at predicting health effects from aerosol exposure. For typical atmospheric aerosol, the LDSA concentration depends mainly on the concentration of ultrafine particles (e.g. vehicular exhaust emissions and residential wood combustion) and therefore optical methods cannot be used to measure and quantify it. The objective of this study was to investigate and describe typical characteristics of LDSA under different urban environments and evaluate how a diffusion charging-based Pegasor AQ Urban sensor (Pegasor Ltd., Finland) can be used as an alternative to optical sensors when assessing local combustion emissions and respective LDSA concentrations. Long-term (12 months) sensor measurements of LDSA were carried out at three distinctly different measurement sites (four sensor nodes) in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. The sites were affected mainly by vehicular exhaust emission (street canyon and urban background stations) and by residential wood combustion (two detached housing area stations). The results showed that the accuracy of the AQ Urban was good (R2 = 0.90) for the measurement of LDSA when compared to differential mobility particle sizer. The mean concentrations of LDSA were more than twice as high at the street canyon (mean 22 µm2 cm−3) site when compared to the urban background site (mean 9.4 µm2 cm−3). In the detached housing area, the mean concentrations were 12 µm2 cm−3, and wood combustion typically caused high LDSA peaks in the evenings. High correlations and similar diurnal cycles were observed for the LDSA and black carbon at street canyon and urban background stations. The utilization of a small-scale sensor network (four nodes) showed that the cross-station variability in hourly LDSA concentrations was significant in every site, even within the same detached housing area (distance between the two sites ∼670 m). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Traffic-related aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the urban atmosphere. As they are produced at ground level, they can also cause adverse health effects to urban dwellers. However, knowledge of the formation, transformation and chemically resolved size distribution of urban ultrafine particles is incomplete. Thus, more of these measurements are needed for better assessment of ambient air quality and its potential health effects. The particle number concentration, aerosol black carbon (BC) concentration and size distribution of traffic-related aerosols were measured near two major roads in Kuopio, Finland, from 16 June to 5 July, 2004. Furthermore, the properties of roadside aerosol particles were examined with the Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer technique (TDMA). A suite of TDMA instruments relying on water (hygroscopic TDMA) and ethanol (organic TDMA) condensation as well as heating (volatility TDMA) were deployed to study the composition of the nucleation and Aitken mode particles (D p = 10–50 nm) formed from vehicle exhaust. The results show that a simple three-component model was able to reproduce characteristic insoluble, organic and water-soluble volume fractions. Insoluble constituents were dominant in the Aitken mode particles, whereas organic compounds dominated the nucleation mode sizes. On average, only a small volume fraction was water-soluble, but a clear external mixing was observed particularly when enough time was allowed after the tail pipe emissions. The contribution of the insoluble material was seen to increase as a function of particle size, being typically less than 10% at 10 nm and between 20 and 50% at 50 nm, in contrast to the organic fraction, which decreased from about 80% at nucleation mode size range to 50–60% at 50 nm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]