title: Evaluation of the thermal/optical reflectance method for discrimination between char- and soot-EC.
abstract: Many optical, thermal and chemical methods exist for the measurement of elemental carbon (EC) but are unable or neglect to differentiate between the different forms of EC such as char- or soot-EC. The thermal/optical reflectance (TOR) method applies different temperatures for measuring EC and organic carbon (OC) contents through programmed, progressive heating in a controlled atmosphere, making available eight separate carbon fractions - four OC, one pyrolyzed organic carbon, and three EC. These fractions were defined by temperature protocol, oxidation atmosphere, and laser-light reflectance/transmittance. Stepwise thermal evolutional oxidation of the TOR method makes it possible to distinguish char- from soot-EC. In this study, different EC reference materials, including char and soot, were used for testing it. The thermograms of EC reference materials showed that activation energy is lower for char- than soot-EC. Low-temperature EC1 (550 degrees C in a 98% He/2% O2 atmosphere) is more abundant for char samples. Diesel and n-hexane soot samples exhibit similar EC2 (700 degrees C in a 98% He/2% O2 atmosphere) peaks, while carbon black samples peaks at both EC2 and EC3 (800 degrees C in a 98% He/2% O2 atmosphere). These results supported the use of the TOR method to discriminate between char- and soot-EC.
authors.affiliation: SKLLQG, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China. yongming@ieecas.cn
authors.forename: Yongming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Judith C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: Zhisheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Zhangdong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Kochy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fung
authors.forename: Suixin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D012015:Reference Standards; D053260:Soot / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D053260:Soot; D002244:Carbon