Intercomparison of thermal-optical methods for the determination of organic and elemental carbon: influences of aerosol composition and implications

An intercomparison of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) measurements was conducted based on ambient aerosol samples collected during four seasons in Beijing, China. Dependence of OC and EC values on the temperature protocol and the charring correction method is presented and influences of aerosol composition are investigated. EC was found to decrease with the peak inert mode temperature (T(peak)) such that EC determined by the IMPROVE (the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments)-A protocol (T(peak) was 580 °C) was 2.85 ± 1.31 and 3.83 ± 2.58 times that measured by an alternative protocol with a T(peak) of 850 °C when using the transmittance and reflectance correction, respectively. It was also found that reflectance correction tends to classify more carbon as EC compared with transmittance; results from the IMPROVE-A protocol showed that the ratio of EC defined by reflectance correction (EC(R)) to that based on transmittance (EC(T)) averaged 1.50 ± 0.42. Moreover, it was demonstrated that emissions from biomass burning would increase the discrepancy between EC values determined by different temperature protocols. On the other hand, the discrepancy between EC(R) and EC(T) was strongly associated with secondary organic aerosol (SOA) which was shown to be an important source of the organics that pyrolyze during the inert mode of thermal-optical analysis.