Characterization of aerosol organics by diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Conference · Thu Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1988 · Preprints of Papers Presented at National Meeting, Division of Water, Air and Waste Chemistry, American Chemical Society; (USA)

OSTI ID:7268403

Gordon, R J; Trivedi, N J; Singh, B P ^[1]; Ellis, E C ^[2]

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1. Global Geochemistry Corp., Canoga Park, CA (USA)
2. Southern California Edison Co., Rosemead, CA (USA)

The approaches to analyze the organic portion of urban aerosol, often a substantial fraction, to date have been those of gradient pyrolysis-mass spectrometry or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Although mass spectrometry (MS) is excellent in identifying individual compounds and for determining functionality in selected cases, it is less capable of handling complicated mixtures where there are several different functionalities. For the latter, the technique of infrared (IR) spectroscopy has great advantages. Besides its highly specific structure/wavelength relationships, it is less expensive to operate than MS, there is no volatility requirement, and high temperatures and vacuum are not needed. When extensive prefractionation of mixture is necessary, leading to small fraction sizes, the limited sensitivity of IR may be augmented by using Fourier transform methods; and to avoid transparency limits of solvents, reflectance methods may be used. The authors are therefore investigating aerosol organic composition by means of diffuse reflectance FTIR, or DRIFT. They have accounted for a more substantial fraction of the total mass by functionality than has been possible up to now by MS identification of individual components.

• OSTI ID: 7268403
• Report Number(s): CONF-8909232--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Preprints of Papers Presented at National Meeting, Division of Water, Air and Waste Chemistry, American Chemical Society; (USA) Journal Volume: 28:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400102* -- Chemical & Spectral Procedures
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540120 -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
ABSORPTION SPECTROSCOPY
AEROSOLS
ALDEHYDES
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
COLLOIDS
DATA
DISPERSIONS
ESTERS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FOURIER TRANSFORM SPECTROMETERS
INFORMATION
INFRARED SPECTRA
KETONES
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NITRO COMPOUNDS
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
PERFORMANCE
QUALITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
SOLS
SPECTRA
SPECTROMETERS
SPECTROSCOPY