On the autarchic use of solely PIXE data in particulate matter source apportionment studies by receptor modeling

Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis of aerosol samples allows simultaneous detection of several elements, including important tracers of many particulate matter sources. This capability, together with the possibility of analyzing a high number of samples in very short times, makes PIXE a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms Beam interactions with materials and atoms, 2015-11, Vol.363, p.105-111
Main Authors: Lucarelli, F., Nava, S., Calzolai, G., Chiari, M., Giannoni, M., Traversi, R., Udisti, R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosols
Atmospheric aerosol
Factorization
Nitrates
Particulate emissions
PIXE
PMF
Pollution sources
Receptors
Seasonal variations
Source apportionment
Speciation
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Summary:Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) analysis of aerosol samples allows simultaneous detection of several elements, including important tracers of many particulate matter sources. This capability, together with the possibility of analyzing a high number of samples in very short times, makes PIXE a very effective tool for source apportionment studies by receptor modeling. However, important aerosol components, like nitrates, OC and EC, cannot be assessed by PIXE: this limitation may strongly compromise the results of a source apportionment study if based on PIXE data alone. In this work, an experimental dataset characterised by an extended chemical speciation (elements, EC–OC, ions) is used to test the effect of reducing input species in the application of one of the most widely used receptor model, namely Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). The main effect of using only PIXE data is that the secondary nitrate source is not identified and the contribution of biomass burning is overestimated, probably due to the similar seasonal pattern of these two sources.
ISSN:0168-583X
1872-9584
DOI:10.1016/j.nimb.2015.08.019