title: Source Apportionment of Elemental Carbon in Beijing, China: Insights from Radiocarbon and Organic Marker Measurements.
abstract: Elemental carbon (EC) or black carbon (BC) in the atmosphere has a strong influence on both climate and human health. In this study, radiocarbon ((14)C) based source apportionment is used to distinguish between fossil fuel and biomass burning sources of EC isolated from aerosol filter samples collected in Beijing from June 2010 to May 2011. The (14)C results demonstrate that EC is consistently dominated by fossil-fuel combustion throughout the whole year with a mean contribution of 79% ± 6% (ranging from 70% to 91%), though EC has a higher mean and peak concentrations in the cold season. The seasonal molecular pattern of hopanes (i.e., a class of organic markers mainly emitted during the combustion of different fossil fuels) indicates that traffic-related emissions are the most important fossil source in the warm period and coal combustion emissions are significantly increased in the cold season. By combining (14)C based source apportionment results and picene (i.e., an organic marker for coal emissions) concentrations, relative contributions from coal (mainly from residential bituminous coal) and vehicle to EC in the cold period were estimated as 25 ± 4% and 50 ± 7%, respectively, whereas the coal combustion contribution was negligible or very small in the warm period.
authors.affiliation: ‡Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland.|§Yale-NUIST Center on Atmospheric Environment, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
authors.forename: Yan-Lin
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: ∥Joint Mass Spectrometry Center, Cooperation Group Comprehensive Molecular Analytics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schnelle-Kreis
authors.affiliation: ∥Joint Mass Spectrometry Center, Cooperation Group Comprehensive Molecular Analytics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Gülcin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Abbaszade
authors.affiliation: ∥Joint Mass Spectrometry Center, Cooperation Group Comprehensive Molecular Analytics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.|⊥Joint Mass Spectrometry Centre, Chair of Analytical Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry University of Rostock, 18059 Rostock, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
authors.affiliation: ‡Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zotter
authors.affiliation: #Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
authors.forename: Rong-rong
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: #Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schäfer
authors.affiliation: ∇State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, School of Geoscience and Surveying Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Longyi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: ‡Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland.
authors.forename: André S H
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Prévôt
authors.forename: Sönke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Szidat
mesh_terms: D000336:Aerosols / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D001272:Atmosphere; D000068476:Beijing; D018533:Biomass; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis; D002681:China; D003031:Coal / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005579:Fossil Fuels / Q000032:analysis; D012621:Seasons; D053260:Soot / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000336:Aerosols; D000393:Air Pollutants; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D003031:Coal; D005579:Fossil Fuels; D053260:Soot; D002244:Carbon