Water uptake and chemical composition of fresh aerosols generated in open burning of biomass (original) (raw)

As part of the Fire Lab at Missoula Experiments (FLAME) in 2006-2007, we examined hygroscopic properties of particles emitted from open combustion of 33 select biomass fuels. Measurements of humidification growth factors for subsaturated water relative humidity (RH) conditions were made with a hygroscopic tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA) for dry particle sizes of 50, 100 and 250 nm. Results were then fit to a single-parameter model to obtain the hygroscopicity parameter, κ. Particles in freshly emitted biomass smoke exhibited a wide range of hygroscopicity (individual modes with 0 < κ < 1.0), spanning a range from the hygroscopicity of fresh diesel soot emissions to that of pure inorganic salts commonly found in the ambient aerosol. Smoke aerosols dominated by carbonaceous species typically had a unimodal growth factor with corresponding mean κ = 0.1 (range of 0 < κ < 0.4). Those with a substantial inorganic mass fraction typically separated into less-and more-hygroscopic modes at high RH, the latter with mean κ = 0.4 (range of 0.1 < κ < 1). The bimodal κ distributions were indicative of smoke chemical heterogeneity at a single particle size, whereas heterogeneity as a function of size was indicated by typically decreasing κ values with increasing dry particle diameters. Hygroscopicity varied strongly