Characterization of Organic Aerosol at a Rural Site in the North China Plain Region:Sources,Volatility and Organonitrates

The North China Plain(NCP)is a region that experiences serious aerosol pollution.A number of studies have focused on aerosol pollution in urban areas in the NCP region;however,research on characterizing aerosols in rural NCP areas is comparatively limited.In this study,we deployed a TD-HR-AMS(thermodenuder high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometer)system at a rural site in the NCP region in summer 2013 to characterize the chemical compositions and volatility of submicron aerosols(PM_(1)).The average PM_(1)mass concentration was 51.2±48.0μg m^(−3) and organic aerosol(OA)contributed most(35.4%)to PM_(1).Positive matrix factorization(PMF)analysis of OA measurements identified four OA factors,including hydrocarbon-like OA(HOA,accounting for 18.4%),biomass burning OA(BBOA,29.4%),lessoxidized oxygenated OA(LO-OOA,30.8%)and more-oxidized oxygenated OA(MO-OOA,21.4%).The volatility sequence of the OA factors was HOA>BBOA>LO-OOA>MO-OOA,consistent with their oxygen-to-carbon(O:C)ratios.Additionally,the mean concentration of organonitrates(ON)was 1.48−3.39μg m−3,contributing 8.1%-19%of OA based on cross validation of two estimation methods with the high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer(HRToF-AMS)measurement.Correlation analysis shows that ON were more correlated with BBOA and black carbon emitted from biomass burning but poorly correlated with LO-OOA.Also,volatility analysis for ON further confirmed that particulate ON formation might be closely associated with primary emissions in rural NCP areas.