A Novel PTR-ToF-MS Inlet System for On-line Chemical Analysis of SOA
Résumé
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is formed from biogenic and anthropogenic precursors in the atmosphere. Because of its impact on human health and the environment there is a strong interest in understanding the chemistry of SOA formation and transformation. Its volatility, chemical complexity and reactivity and low ambient concentrations challenge the chemical analysis of SOA. Here we present a novel analytical setup for on-line measurements of SOA under ambient conditions by chemical ionization mass spectrometry. The method overcomes current limitations in the chemical analysis of SOA by combining on-line enrichment of the particle concentration and on-line mass spectrometric detection using soft chemical ionization. On-line sampling allows for highly time-resolved analysis of organic aerosol compounds and avoids potential sampling artifacts from sample pre-collection and pretreatment. The deployment of a soft ionization method minimizes the fragmentation of fragile organic aerosol compounds in the mass spectrometer. A proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass-spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) is combined with a three-stage aerosol inlet system consisting of an activated carbon monolith denuder, an aerodynamic lens (ADL) and a thermodesorption unit. The denuder strips off gas-phase organic compounds and the ADL enriches the particle concentration in the sample flow. Ultimately, organic aerosol compounds are volatilized at 120C in the thermodesorption unit before being introduced into the PTR-ToF-MS system for chemical analysis. The ADL is designed to increase the particle concentration in the sample flow by a factor of up to 50 for particles in the size range between 50 and 1000 nm. This novel enrichment step enables the real-time in situ analysis of SOA at sub g/m 3 -levels by PTR-ToF-MS.