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A Continuous-Flow Gas Interface of a Thermal/Optical Analyzer With 14C AMS for Source Apportionment of Atmospheric Aerosols

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2016

Konstantinos Agrios ,
Gary Salazar  and
Sönke Szidat
Konstantinos Agrios
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Laboratory of Radiochemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland
Gary Salazar*
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Sönke Szidat
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

This article reports on the performance of a continuous-flow interface for CO2 gas feeding into the ion source of a 200-kV accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) in splitless mode. Distinct CO2 fractions and subfractions produced by a commercial Sunset OC/EC (organic carbon/elemental carbon) analyzer from ambient atmospheric aerosols filters are injected into the source and then analyzed by their 14C/12C ratio in real time. New features are revealed from organic aerosol subfractions, which thermally desorb close to each other and are only visible by real-time analysis. An optimized setup for this purpose is presented for the measurement of CO2 amounts from 3 to 45 μg C. Efficiencies of 4.5–8.0% for the formation of C- ions from CO2 are obtained for sample masses of 5–10 μg C and carbon mass flow rates below 2 µg min–1. However, this ionization efficiency is substantially suppressed at high carbon mass flow rates. The potential of this method for a refined apportionment of aerosol sources is demonstrated with ambient filter samples.

Keywords

AMSatmospheric carbonaceous aerosolscarbon dioxidegas analysis14C
Type
Advances in Physical Measurement Techniques
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 3: Proceedings of the 22nd International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , June 2017 , pp. 921 - 932
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2015 Radiocarbon Conference, Dakar, Senegal, 16–20 November 2015

References

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