Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from Semi-Volatile and Intermediate Volatility Organic Compounds in the Fall in Beijing

Abstract

Intermediate volatility organic compounds (IVOCs) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have recently been proposed as important precursors of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). In the present work, 97 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and 80 intermediate volatility and semi-volatile organic compounds (IVOCs and SVOCs) were measured by online gas chromatography-mass spectrometer/flame ionization detection (GC-MS/FID), and offline thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (TD-GC-MS), respectively. The average concentration of speciated VOCs, IVOCs, and SVOCs were 22.36 ± 9.02 μg m−3, 1.01 ± 0.32 μg m−3, and 0.10 ± 0.17 μg m−3. Alkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the main compounds of total S/IVOCs. With the increase in molecular weight, the concentrations decreased in the gas phase, while increasing in the particle phase. Vehicular emission is the most significant source according to the carbon preference index (CPI) and the carbon of the most abundant alkane (Cmax). The yield method was used to estimate SOA from the oxidation of VOCs and S/IVOCs. The estimated SOA mass from IVOCs and SVOCs (0.70 ± 0.57 μg m−3) was comparable to that of VOCs (0.62 ± 0.61 μg m−3), and the oxidation of PAHs and alkanes took up 28.70 ± 8.26% and 51.97 ± 20.77% of the total SOA estimation, respectively. Compared to previous work, our study provided detailed molecular information of ambient S/IVOC species and elucidated their importance on SOA formation. Despite their low concentration, S/IVOCs species are important SOA precursors which shared comparable contribution compared with VOCs.