Because diacids and related compounds are an important group of organic aerosols (OA) and provide insights on sources of the OA, Prof. Chandra Mouli Pavuluri Group has studied them in summer- and winter-time fine aerosols (PM2.5) from Tianjin to understand the origins and secondary formation pathways of the OA in North China. Based on the observed characteristics, they found that coal combustion and biomass burning emissions and in-situ photochemical reactions at local scale and aging during long-range transport are the major sources of water-soluble OA in both summer and winter. This study revealed that diacids and related compounds and WSOC are increased with increasing SO42- and they are produced in aqueous phase, implying the need of reduction in oxidants (NOx and SO2) emissions to control the water-soluble OA loading over North China.
The full article “Molecular distributions of diacids, oxoacids and a-dicarbonyls in summer- and winter-time fine aerosols from Tianjin, North China: Emissions from combustion sources and aqueous phase secondary formation”, C. M. Pavuluri, S. Wang, P. Q. Fu, W. Zhao, Z. Xu, and C.-Q. Liu, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032961.
