EGU2020-21813, updated on 08 Jul 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21813
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Chemical characterization of fine particulate matter, and source apportionment of organic aerosol at three sites in New Delhi, India

Sachchida Tripathi1, Vipul Lalchandani1, Varun Kumar2, Anna Tobler2, Navaneeth Thamban1, Suneeti Mishra1, Jay Slowik2, Deepika Bhattu2, Dilip Ganguly3, Shashi Tiwari4, and Andre Prevot2
Sachchida Tripathi et al.
  • 1Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Department of Civil Engineering, Kanpur, India (snt@iitk.ac.in)
  • 2Paul Scherrer Institute, Laboratory of Atmospheric Science, Switzerland
  • 3Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, India
  • 4Department of Civil Engineering, MRIIRS, Faridabad, Haryana 121004

Atmospheric particulate matter has adverse effects on human health, and causes over 4 million deaths per year globally. New Delhi was ranked as world’s most polluted megacity with annual average PM2.5 concentration of ~140 ug.m-3. Thus, real time chemical characterization of fine particulate matter and identification of its sources is important for developing cost effective mitigation policies.

Highly time resolved real-time chemical composition of PM2.5 was measured using Long-Time of Flight-Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (L-ToF-AMS) at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Time of Flight-Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ToF-ACSM) at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Delhi, and PM1 using High Resolution-Time of Flight-Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) at Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana located ~40 km downwind of Delhi during Jan-March, 2018. Black carbon concentration was measured using Aethalometer at all three sites. Unit mass resolution (UMR) and high resolution (HR) data analysis were performed on AMS and ACSM mass spectra to calculate organics, nitrate, sulfate and chloride concentrations. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) (Paatero and Tapper, 1994) of organic mass spectra was performed by applying multilinear engine (ME-2) algorithm using Sofi (Source finder) for identifying sources of OA.

How to cite: Tripathi, S., Lalchandani, V., Kumar, V., Tobler, A., Thamban, N., Mishra, S., Slowik, J., Bhattu, D., Ganguly, D., Tiwari, S., and Prevot, A.: Chemical characterization of fine particulate matter, and source apportionment of organic aerosol at three sites in New Delhi, India, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-21813, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21813, 2020.