• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.159-172
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• 2019

To investigate the influence of pollution events on the chemical composition and formation processes of aerosol particles, 24-h integrated size-segregated particulate matter (PM) was collected during the fall season at an urban site of Gwangju, Korea and was used to determine the concentrations of mass, water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) and ionic species. Furthermore, black carbon (BC) concentrations were observed with an aethalometer. The entire sampling period was classified into four periods, i.e., typical, pollution event I, pollution event II, and an Asian dust event. Stable meteorological conditions (e.g., low wind speed, high surface pressure, and high relative humidity) observed during the two pollution events led to accumulation of aerosol particles and increased formation of secondary organic and inorganic aerosol species, thus causing $PM_{2.5}$ increase. Furthermore, these stable conditions resulted in the predominant condensation or droplet mode size distributions of PM, WSOC, $NO_3{^-}$, and $SO{_4}^{2-}$. However, difference in the accumulation mode size distributions of secondary water-soluble species between pollution events I and II could be attributed to the difference in transport pathways of air masses from high-pollution regions and the formation processes for the secondary chemical species. The average absorption ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent ($AAE_{370-950}$) for 370-950 nm wavelengths > 1.0 indicates that the BC particles from traffic emissions were likely mixed with light absorbing brown carbon (BrC) from biomass burning (BB) emissions. It was found that light absorption by BrC in the near UV range was affected by both secondary organic aerosol and BB emissions. Overall, the pollution events observed during fall at the study site can be due to the synergy of unfavorable meteorological conditions, enhanced secondary formation, local emissions, and long-range transportation of air masses from upwind polluted areas.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.131-157
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• 2016

A smog chamber has been an effective tool to study air quality, particularly secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which is typically formed by atmospheric oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In controlled environments, smog chamber studies have validated atmospheric oxidation by identifying, quantifying and monitoring products with state-of-art instruments (e.g., aerosol mass spectrometer, scanning mobility particle sizer) and provided chemical insights of SOA formation by elucidating reaction mechanisms. This paper reviews types of smog chambers and the current state of smog chamber studies that have accomplished to find pathways of SOA formation, focusing on gas-particle partitioning of semivolatile products of VOC oxidation, heterogeneous reactions on aerosol surface, and aqueous chemistry in aerosol waters (e.g., cloud/fog droplets and wet aerosols). For future chamber studies, then, this paper discusses potential formation pathways of fine particles that East Asia countries (e.g., Korea and China) currently suffer from due to massive formation that gives rise to fatal health problems.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

In this study, the formation of nanoparticles by a reaction of ozone with the volatile organic compounds(VOCs) emitted from a commercial home cleaner liquid was investigated using a $1-m^3$ reaction chamber($1{\times}1{\times}1m$). The home cleaner liquid was found to contain many VOCs, particularly terpenes. Some of these VOCs are known to readily react with ozone, forming indoor secondary pollutants. The correlation of particle concentration and reacted ozone concentration was examined with injections of three different ozone concentrations; 50, 100 and 200 ppb. The secondary nanoparticles were formed faster, with their numbers and mass concentrations becoming higher on increasing the concentration of ozone injected.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.353-363
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• 2007

To differentiate temperature effect from the light intensity effect on the formation of secondary products during the photooxidation of toluene-$NO_x$-air mixtures, steady-state air temperature was changed from $20^{\circ}C\;to\;33^{\circ}C$ at the same light intensity of $0.39min^{-1}$ in an indoor smog chamber. Smog chamber consisted of 64 blacklights and a $5.8m^3$ reaction bag made of Teflon film. Air temperature was controlled by an air-conditioning system. The starting time for rapid conversion of NO to $NO_2$ was slightly delayed with decreasing air temperature. In contrast to light intensity effect, the ozone formation time and the ozone production rate were insensitive to air temperature. Although the formation time for secondary organic aerosols was not changed, the particle number concentration increased with temperature. However, the newly formed secondary organic aerosol mass at lower temperature was higher than that at higher temperature. Since light intensity significantly affected the starting time and quantity of ozone and aerosol formation, it is considered that the temperature could contribute partly the quantity of aerosol formation during the photooxidation of toluene-$NO_x$-air mixtures.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.89-102
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• 2013

24-hr $PM_{2.5}$ samples were collected from January 19 through February 27, 2009 at an urban site of Gwangju and analyzed to determine the concentrations of organic and elemental carbon(OC and EC), water-soluble OC(WSOC), eight ionic species($Na^+$, $NH^{4+}$, $K^+$, $Ca^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $Cl^-$, ${NO_3}^-$ and ${SO_4}^{2-}$), and 22 elemental species. Haze phenomena was observed during approximately 29%(10 times) of the whole sampling period(35 days), resulting in highly elevated concentrations of $PM_{2.5}$ and its chemical components. An Asian dust event was also observed, during which $PM_{2.5}$ concentration was 64.5 ${\mu}g/m^2$. Crustal materials during Asian dust event contributed 26.6% to the $PM_{2.5}$, while lowest contribution(5.1%) was from the haze events. OC/EC and WSOC/OC ratios were found to be higher during haze days than during other sampling days, reflecting an enhanced secondary organic aerosol production under the haze conditions. For an Asian dust event, enhanced concentrations of OC and secondary inorganic components were also found, suggesting the further atmospheric processing of precursor gases during transport of air mass to the sampling site. Correlations among WSOC, EC, ${NO_3}^-$, ${SO_4}^{2-}$, and primary and secondary OC fractions, which were predicted from EC tracer method, suggests that the observed WSOC could be formed from similar formation processes as those of secondary organic aerosol, ${NO_3}^-$ and ${SO_4}^{2-}$. Results from principal component analysis indicate also that the observed WSOC was strongly associated with formation routes of the secondary organic and inorganic aerosols.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.534-544
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• 2011

The secondary aerosol forming potential of ambient air was first measured with the Potential Aerosol Mass(PAM) chamber at Gosan supersite on Jeju island from October 22 to November 5, 2010. PAM chamber is a small flowthrough photo-oxidation chamber with extremely high OH and $O_3$ levels. The OH exposure in the PAM chamber was $(2{\pm}0.4){\times}10^{11}{\sim}(6{\pm}1.2){\times}10^{11}$ molecules $cm^{-3}$ s and was similar to 2 to 5 days of aging in the atmosphere. By periodically turning on and off UV lamps in the PAM chamber, ambient aerosol and newly formed aerosol (e.g. called as PAM aerosol) was alternately measured. Aerosol number and mass concentration in the range of 10~487 nm in diameter was measured by SMPS 3034. With UV lamps on, the nucleation mode particles smaller than 50 nm in diameters were formed. Their number concentration was greater than 105 $cm^{-3}$, leading to increase in aerosol mass by 0~8 ${\mu}gm^{-3}$. The variations of PAM and ambient aerosols were greatly dependent on characteristics of air masses such as precursor concentrations and degree of aging. This preliminary results suggests that PAM chamber is useful to assess the aerosol formation potential of air mass and its impact on the air quality. The further analysis of data with gaseous and particulate measurements will be done.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.1157-1167
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• 2007

In an effort to interpret the characteristics of fine particle concentrations in Busan, time variations of hourly monitored concentrations $PM_{10}$ (Particulate Matter with aerodynamic Diameter ${\le}10\;{\mu}m$) in Busan are analyzed for the period from 2000 to 2005. The characteristics of aerosol second generation formation process is also interpreted qualitatively, by using the statistical analysis of the meteorological variables including temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity. The result shows some significant annual, seasonal, weekly and diurnal variations of $PM_{10}$ concentrations. In particular, seasonal(i.e., spring) variations are governed by frequency of yellow sand events even for the non-yellow sand cases where yellow-sand days are eliminated in our analysis. However, in seasonal variation, summer season predominate lower $PM_{10}$ concentrations due to the frequent precipitation, and weekly and diurnal variations are both found to be reflecting the emission rate from traffic amount. Correlation coefficients between $PM_{10}$ concentration and meterological variables for non-yellow sand days show overall negative correlation with visibility, wind speed, cloud amounts, and relative humidity. However for non-precipitation days, during non-yellow sand period positive correlation are found clearly with relative humidity, suggesting the importance of secondary aerosol formation in Busan that can be achieved by both homogeneous aerosol formation and heterogeneous transformations resulting from hygroscopic aerosol characteristics.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.418-429
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• 2018

Measurements of 24-hr size-segregated ambient particles were made at an urban site of Gwangju under high pressure conditions occurred in the Korean Peninsula late in March 2018. The aim of this study was to understand the effect of air stagnation on mass size distributions and formation pathways of water-soluble organic and inorganic components. During the study period, the $NO_3{^-}$, $SO_4{^{2-}}$, $NH_4{^+}$, water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), and humic-like substances(HULIS) exhibited mostly bi-modal size distributions peaking at 1.0 and $6.2{\mu}m$, with predominant droplet modes. In particular, outstanding droplet mode size distributions were observed on March 25 when a severe haze occurred due to stable air conditions and long range transport of aerosol particles from northeastern regions of China. Air stagnation conditions and high relative humidity during the study period resulted in accumulation of primary aerosol particles from local emission sources and enhanced formation of secondary ionic and organic aerosols through aqueous-phase oxidations of $SO_2$, $NO_2$, $NH_3$, and volatile organic compounds, leading to their dominant droplet mode size distributions at particle size of $1.0{\mu}m$. From the size distribution of $K^+$ in accumulation mode, it can be inferred that in addition to the secondary organic aerosol formations, accumulation mode WSOC and HULIS could be partly attributed to biomass burning emissions.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.232-236
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• 2010

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2009

In order to examine the effects of micrometeorological and climatological influences on urban scale particulate air pollutants observed in Busan, power spectrum analysis was applied to the observed particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ${\le}10{\mu}m$ ($PM_{10}$) for the period from 1991 to 2006. Power spectrum analysis has been employed to the daily mean $PM_{10}$ concentrations obtained at 13 sites to identify different scales of periodicities of $PM_{10}$ concentrations. The results show that, aside from the typical and well-known periodicities such as diurnal and annual variations caused by anthropogenic emission influences, another two significant peaks of power spectrum density were identified: 21 day and $3{\sim}4$ year of periodicities. Cospectrum analysis indicates that the intraseasonal 21 day periodicity are found to be negatively correlated with wind speed and surface pressure but shows consistently positive with relative humidity and temperature. This result implied that 21 day periodicity is presumably relevant to the secondary aerosol formation processes through the photochemical reaction that can be subsequently resulted from hygroscopic characteristics of aerosol formation. However, the interannual $3{\sim}4$ year of periodicity is found to have positive correlation with pressure, and negative with temperature and relative humidity, which is rather consistent with both characteristics of air mass during the Asian dust event and the occurrence frequency of Asian dust whose periodicities have been recorded inter-annually over the Korean peninsula.