Chemical composition of atmospheric aerosols from Zhenbeitai, China, and Gosan, South Korea, during ACE-Asia

Studies were conducted as part of Asian Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia) to characterize the major ion and elemental composition of aerosol particle samples collected at Gosan, an ACE-Asia supersite (GOS, Korea, total suspended particle or TSP samples) and at Zhenbeitai (ZBT, China, TSP and particles <2.5 mu m diameter or PM2.5 samples), a site closer to the sources for Asia dust. The concentrations of 24 elements in the ZBT PM2.5 samples were correlated with Al (an indicator of mineral dust), and the ratios of these elements to Al were similar to those in a loess certified reference material, but a second group of elements was enriched over crustal proportions most likely as a result of pollution emissions. The concentrations of various water-soluble (WS) cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+) also were generally well correlated with Al in both the ZBT and GOS samples, with the exception being WS K+ at ZBT, where biomass burning may have had an effect. The percentage of calcium that was soluble approached 100% at ZBT versus similar to 60% at GOS, and the ratio WS Ca2+/Al also was higher at ZBT. The molar ratio of sulfate to WS Ca2+ was similar to 0.1 at ZBT but increased to near unity at GOS, where the aerosol nitrate/WS Ca2+ ratio was tenfold to hundredfold higher compared with ZBT, presumably because of anthropogenic influences. The observed differences in aerosol characteristics between sites can only be explained as the end product of different source contributions combined with complex processes involving gas-particle conversion, size-dependent fractionation, and aerosol mixing.