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The chemical composition of aerosols from wildland fires: Current state of the science and possible new directions.
Citation:
Hays, M., A. Holder, B. Gullett, Chris Geron, AND B. Hemming. The chemical composition of aerosols from wildland fires: Current state of the science and possible new directions. To be Presented at The Fire Continuum Conference, Missoula,MT, May 21 - 25, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Wildland fires emit a substantial quantity of aerosol mass to the atmosphere. These aerosols are a complex mixture of organic matter and refractory elemental or black carbon and also comprise minor concentrations of inorganic matter from soils and plant micronutrients. Identification and quantification of both the bulk chemical constituents and individual chemical components in aerosols emitted from wildfire is important to understanding public health effects, climate change, and supports the dispersion, apportionment, and air quality models most relevant to generating sound regulatory policy.
Description:
While current analytical chemistry technology is offering unprecedented information about aerosol composition, a large fraction of organic aerosol released during wildland fires often remains unidentified. This presentation aims to examine the current state of the science with regard to the bulk chemical and molecular level properties of organic aerosol particles emitted from biomass burning with a specific focus on wildland fires. We discuss the novel hyphenated chromatography-mass spectrometry and absorption spectroscopy tools being used to measure functional group chemistry, individual molecular constituents, and optical properties of wildland fire aerosols. We also propose the use of additional analytical-chemical technology that may assist in further unraveling unidentified aerosol matter from the globally important wildland fire aerosol source.