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Synthesizing Scientific Progress: Outcomes from US EPA’s Carbonaceous Aerosols and Source Apportionment STAR Grants
Citation:
Wagstrom, K., K. Baker, AND S. Hunt. Synthesizing Scientific Progress: Outcomes from US EPA’s Carbonaceous Aerosols and Source Apportionment STAR Grants. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 48(18):10561-10570, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The purpose of this article is to synthesize results from two previous STAR solicitations and to describe how they impacte the research field.
Description:
ABSTRACTA number of studies in the past decade have transformed the way we think about atmospheric aerosols. The advances include, but are not limited to, source apportionment of organics using aerosol mass spectrometer data, the volatility basis set approach, quantifying isoprene oxidation, and understanding the role of aqueous oxidation of organics on SOA formation. A series of grants funded by EPA just less than ten years ago supported many of these advances. These projects make up the body of work awarded under two solicitations released by the EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program: “Measurement, Modeling, and Analysis Methods for Airborne Carbonaceous Fine Particulate Matter” (2003) and “Source Apportionment of Particulate Matter” (2004). Our goal is to present the impact of the STAR solicitations and to show how they have pushed the field forward and led to new questions.Projects within this portfolio addressed many aspects of ambient aerosol measurements leading to improvements in black carbon measurements and individual organic species separation. Investigators also provided the community with detailed oxidation mechanisms, SOA yields, and emissions rates for many biogenic organic gases. In addition, findings brought to light the importance of aqueous oxidation in the SOA formation process. One set of investigators proposed the volatility basis set which provides a new, efficient approach for modeling organic aerosols. Finally, this work provided many advances in the area of source apportionment including the development of a new approach to apply positive matrix factorization to AMS data allowing for more comprehensive source analysis of organics. The application of modeling techniques such as the Decoupled Direct Method, a sensitivity method, to regional air quality models has improved the suite of tools available to policy makers.
