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Development of Research Strategies for the Sampling and Analysis of
Organic and Elemental Carbon Fractions in Atmospheric Aerosols

Questions & Sub-questions and Topic Leaders

• Robert Cary, President, Sunset Laboratory
• Lloyd Currie, Emeritus Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Judith Chow, Research Professor, Environmental Analysis Facility, Desert Research Institute
• Hélène Cachier, France (invited)
• Joellen Lewtas, Senior Research Scientist, US EPA/Office of Research & Dev’t/Nat’l Exposure Research Lab
• Kirk Fuller, Research Scientist, National Space Science and Technology Center, Univ. of Alabama
• Hans Hansson, Air Pollution Laboratory, Institute of Applied Environmental Research and Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Hans Moosmuller, Research Professor, Desert Research Institute

Questions to be answered are:
1. What is elemental carbon and how do definitions differ for different applications? What are the OC and EC properties that are of importance to human health, visibility, climate, and source attribution? To what extent can a single analytical method or protocol meet these different needs?

Topic Leader: Robert Cary, President, Sunset Laboratory

2. What options exist for fundamental and traceable OC and EC standards? What standards have been used in the past? How well do these represent properties of user communities? What other standards might be added? How can these be created, maintained, and disseminated?

Topic Leader: Lloyd Currie, Emeritus Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology

3. How does the sample affect the measurement of different carbon fractions? How do properties of particles on a filter differ from those in ambient air? How do different compounds react with heat and among themselves to create pyrolized carbon? How do different filter loadings affect optical measures of pyrolysis? Under what conditions might other carbon-containing components (e.g., carbonates) be detected as OC or EC? What additional information should be reported with OC and EC values to evaluate the precision and validity of an OC/EC split?

Judith Chow, Research Professor, Environmental Analysis Facility, Desert Research Institute

4. What are the important parameters that need to be defined for a carbonaceous aerosol analysis and how should these be documented for different analysis protocols? How do temperature plateaus, analysis times, combustion atmospheres, heating rates, and optical pyrolysis monitoring affect the definition of carbon fractions? What differences in analysis protocols should be reported with OC and EC concentrations?

Hélène Cachier, LSCE/CFR, laboratoire mixte CEA-CNRS, France

5. What specific compounds are likely to evolve during different temperature fractions of thermal evolution methods used to analyze carbonaceous aerosols? To what extent do similar compounds evaporate within definable temperature groupings? How well do current temperature-defined fractions defined useful groupings? How might temperature fractions or the detection of thermally-evolved products be optimized for applications such as source attribution?

Joellen Lewtas, Senior Research Scientist, US EPA/Office of Research & Dev’t/Nat’l Exposure Research Lab

6. How does carbonaceous particle composition, shape, and size affect optical properties in the air and when sampled on a filter? How might optical properties of particles in the air differ from those collected on a filter? How might filter transmittance and reflectance change during heating as particle morphology and composition change? Why might optical transmission and reflectance give different pyrolysis corrections?

Kirk Fuller, Research Scientist, National Space Science and Technology Center, Univ. of Alabama

7. How might current analysis methods be enhanced or combined to obtain more information about the nature of OC, EC, and other carbon fractions in filter samples? What can be done with existing analysis methods and samples? What might be provided by collocated measurements? What hardware and software changes would permit more of the commonly applied protocols to be applied with the same analytical instruments?

Hans Hansson, Air Pollution Laboratory, Institute of Applied Environmental Research and Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden

8. What new and innovative sampling, analytical, and interpretive techniques are needed to determine the properties and sources of carbonaceous aerosol in the atmosphere? What is the role of in situ and laboratory analysis now and in the future? How can multiple measurements in space and time assist in the interpretation of and validation of OC/EC fractions? How might new technologies satisfy the needs of multiple users? How might they better quantify OC and EC sources for emissions reduction strategies?

Hans Moosmuller, Research Professor, Desert Research Institute

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