ClearFlo UK 2012 – Thornton Lab

ClearfLo, Detling, UK 2012

From January 22 to February 15, 2012 we deployed our MOVI-HRToF-CIMS in Detling, UK, one of the sites of the ClearfLo project (http://www.clearflo.ac.uk/). The ClearfLo (Clean Air for London) project involves air pollution monitoring sites and meteorological measurements to investigate boundary layer pollution across London.

The ClearfLo field site was located ~45 km ESE of London in Kent (Detling). The area is rural and the meteorology during the campaign provided a range of source regions, air mass ages, temperature, and precipitation. The MOVI-HRToF-CIMS operated nearly continuously from January 22 – February 15.

Local sources such as solid fuel burning and traffic exhaust, but also transport from the city of London and the European continent created an interesting dataset to investigate organic gas- and particle-phase species.

This work is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy: DE-SC0006036. ClearfLo is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for three years from Jan 2010, and is coordinated by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS).

Small subset of ion signal time series recorded by the MOVI-HR-ToF-CIMS including gas and particle components detected using the acetate reagent ion . Two ions (m/Q 138 and 170) detected analyzing the particle phase showed significant variations over the campaign that were fairly well correlated with AMS total organic aerosol mass. These ions also correlated well with that at m/Q 42 detected almost entirely in the gas-phase corresponding to isocyanic acid (HNCO), a biofuel combustion tracer. The ability to simultaneously monitor gas and particle phase composition with one instrument enhances the ability for robust source identification.

Papers published:

Mohr C. et al., (2013), Contribution of Nitrated Phenols to Wood Burning Brown Carbon Light Absorption in Detling, United Kingdom during Winter Time, Environ. Sci. & Technol., 47, dx.doi.org/10.1021/es400683v.