Ultrafine particles at three different sampling locations in Taiwan

Abstract

Atmospheric ultrafine particles (UPs or PM(0.1)) were investigated at the roadside of Syuefu road in Hsinchu city, in the Syueshan highway tunnel in Taipei and in the NTU Experimental Forest in Nantou, Taiwan. A SMPS (TSI 3936) and three MOUDIs (MSP 110) were collocated to determine the number and mass concentrations of the PM(0.1) simultaneously. The filter samples were further analyzed for organic carbon (CC), element carbon (EC), water-soluble ions and trace elements. Taking into account the OC artifact of PM(0.1), good chemical mass closure (ratio of the reconstructed chemical mass to the gravimetrical mass of PMs) was obtained with an unknown percentage of 10.6, 26.2 and 37.2% at the roadside, tunnel and forest, respectively. The unexplained mass was attributed to aerosol water in this study. The artifact at the roadside, tunnel and the forest PM(0.1) mass was found to be as high as 51.6 +/- 10.7%, 20.0 +/- 5.4% and 85.6 +/- 18.4%, respectively. Finally, the effective density of the roadside, tunnel and forest PM(0.1) was calculated based on the results of chemical speciation and found to be 1.45, 1.29 and 1.22 g cm(-3), respectively, which was in good agreement with that obtained by using the method of Spencer et al. (2007). Based on these results, it is foreseeable that the number concentration of the SMPS can be converted using the effective density determined by Spencer et al. (2007) for the real time measurement of the PM(0.1) concentration. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.