Geochemical studies of low molecular weight organic acids in the atmosphere: sources, formation pathways, and gas/particle partitioning

Low molecular weight monocarboxylic acids (LMW monoacids, C₁-C₁₀) are the most abundant gaseous organic compound class in the atmosphere. Formic or acetic acid is the dominant volatile organic compound (VOC) in Earth's atmosphere. They can largely contribute to rainwater acidity, especially in the tropical forest, and react with alkaline metals, ammonia, and amines, contributing to new particle formation and secondary organic aerosol production. Gaseous and particulate LMW monoacids were abundantly reported in China. They can be directly emitted from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burring; however, the secondary formation is more important than primary emissions via the photochemical oxidation of anthropogenic and biogenic VOCs. In this paper, we review the distributions of LMW monoacids from urban, mountain, and marine sites as well as from rainwater and alpine snow samples and discuss their sources and formation mechanisms in the atmosphere. We also discuss their importance as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and provide future perspectives of LMW monoacids study in the warming world.

High-resolution, continuous method for measurement of acidity in ice cores

The acid content of ice core samples provides information regarding the history of volcanism, biogenic activity, windblown dust, forest fires, and pollution-induced acid rain. A continuous ice core analysis allows for collection of high-resolution data in a very efficient manner, but this technique has not been readily applied to the measurement of pH and acidity in ice cores. The difficulty arises because the sample is highly undersaturated with respect to carbon dioxide (CO(2)) immediately after melting, making it difficult to maintain stable concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide and carbonic acid (H(2)CO(3)). Here, we present a solution to this problem in the form of a small flow-through bubbling chamber that is supplied with a known concentration of CO(2). The bubbling action allows for quick equilibration while the small size of the chamber limits sample mixing in order to maintain high resolution. Thorough error analysis provides a measurement uncertainty of ±0.20 μM or ±5% of the acidity value, whichever is greater, and the T95 signal response time is determined to be 1.25 min. The performance of the technique is further evaluated with data from a 63-year ice core from northwest Greenland for which all major ion species were also measured. The measured acidity closely matches the acidity derived from a charge balance calculation, indicating that all of the analytes were measured accurately. The performance specifications that we provide are applicable to ice cores with low concentrations of alkaline dust (<500 ppb), which includes the vast majority of ice cores that are collected. To date, the method has not been evaluated with samples containing high alkaline dust concentrations, such as Greenland cores from the last glacial period, where measurement could be made difficult by memory effects as particles coat the internal surfaces of the sample stream.

Continuous melting and ion chromatographic analyses of ice cores

A new method for determining concentrations of organic and inorganic ions in ice cores by continuous melting and contemporaneous ion chromatographic analyses was developed. A subcore is melted on a melting device and the meltwater produced is collected in two parallel sample loops and then analyzed simultaneously by two ion chromatographs, one for anions and one for cations. For most of the analyzed species, lower or equal blank values were achieved with the continuous melting and analysis technique compared to the conventional analysis. Comparison of the continuous melting and ion chromatographic analysis with the conventional analysis of a real ice core segment showed good agreement in concentration profiles and total amounts of ionic species. Thus, the newly developed method is well suited for ice core analysis and has the advantages of lower ice consumption, less time-consuming sample preparation and lower risk of contamination.