Evaluation of a Method to Measure Black Carbon Particles Suspended in Rainwater and Snow Samples |
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| Authors: | Sho Ohata Nobuhiro Moteki Joshua Schwarz David Fahey Yutaka Kondo |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science , The University of Tokyo , Tokyo , Japan;2. Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , Boulder , Colorado , USA;3. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences , University of Colorado , Boulder , Colorado , USA |
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| Abstract: | We conducted a detailed evaluation of a method for measuring the mass concentrations and size distributions of black carbon (BC) particles in rainwater and snow. The method uses an ultrasonic nebulizer (USN) and a single particle soot photometer (SP2). The USN disperses sample water into micron-size droplets at a constant rate and then dries them to release BC particles into the air. The masses of individual BC particles are measured by the SP2, using the laser-induced incandescence technique. The loss of BC particles during the extraction from liquid water to air depends on their sizes. We determined the size-dependent extraction efficiency using polystyrene latex (PSL) spheres with 12 different diameters between 107 and 1025 nm. The PSL concentrations in water were measured by the light extinction at 532 nm. The extraction efficiency of the USN showed a broad maximum of about 10% in the diameter range 200–500 nm and decreased substantially at larger sizes. The accuracy and reproducibility of the measured mass concentration of BC in sample water after long-term storage were about ±25% and ±35%, respectively. We tested the method by analyzing rainwater and surface snow samples collected in Okinawa and Sapporo, respectively. The measured number size distributions of BC in these samples showed negligible contributions of BC particles larger than 300 nm to the total number of BC particles. A dominant fraction of BC mass in these samples was observed in the diameter range 100–500 nm. Copyright 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research |
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