Polyols and glucose particulate species as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosols at 28 french sites

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> A growing number of studies are using specific primary sugar species, such as sugar alcohols or primary saccharides, as marker compounds to characterize and apportion primary biogenic organic aerosols (PBOA) in the atmosphere. To better understand their annual cycles, as well as their spatio-temporal abundance in terms of concentrations and sources, we conducted a large study focusing on three major atmospheric primary sugar compounds (i.e. arabitol, mannitol and glucose) measured in various environmental conditions on about 5,300 filter samples collected at 28 sites in France. Our results show significant atmospheric concentrations of polyols (defined here as the sum of arabitol and mannitol) and glucose at each sampling location, highlighting their ubiquity. Results also confirm that polyols and glucose are mainly associated with the coarse rather than the fine aerosol mode. At nearly all sites, atmospheric concentrations of polyols and glucose display a well-marked seasonal pattern, with maximum concentrations from late spring to early autumn, followed by an abrupt decrease in late autumn, and a minimum concentration during wintertime. Such seasonal patterns support biogenic emissions associated with higher biological metabolic activities (e.g. sporulation, growth, etc.) during warmer periods. Results from a previous comprehensive study using Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) based on an extended aerosol chemical composition dataset of up to 130 species for 16 of the same sample series has also been used in the present work. Results show that PBOA are significant sources of total OM in PM<sub>10</sub> (13 ± 4 % on a yearly average, and up to 40 % in some environments in summer) at most of the investigated sites. The mean PBOA chemical profile is clearly dominated by OM (78 ± 9 % of the mass of the PBOA PMF factor on average), suggesting that ambient polyols are most likely associated with biological particle emissions (e.g. active spore discharge) rather than soil dust resuspension.</p>

Variability of the Atmospheric PM10 Microbiome in Three Climatic Regions of France

“…A large database on concentrations of PM 10 SC at study sites has been acquired previously at many sites all over France ( Samaké et al, 2019a , b ), including the three sites of this study. It has already been shown that arabitol, mannitol, glucose, and trehalose are generally the main SC species in all urban and rural areas investigated in France ( Samaké et al, 2019a ). Their mean annual and summer concentrations at the 3 sites of the present study for the years 2017 and 2018 are shown in Table 1 .…”

“…Details on the chemical analysis of aerosol are presented elsewhere ( Golly et al, 2018 ; Samaké et al, 2019a , b ). Briefly, each aerosol sample was analyzed for various chemical species using subsampled fractions of the collection filters and a wide range of analytical methods.…”

“…Primary sugar compounds (SC, defined here as sugar alcohols and primary saccharides), emitted continuously from biological sources, are one of the main water-soluble organic compounds present in atmospheric aerosols ( Medeiros and Simoneit, 2007 ; Li et al, 2018 ; Yan et al, 2019 ). Due to their ubiquity and abundance, specific SCs have been used as relevant markers to describe sources and estimate the contributions of PBOAs to the OM mass in the atmosphere ( Zhu et al, 2015 ; Kang et al, 2018 ; Samaké et al, 2019a ). For example, glucose and trehalose (also called mycose) are the most common primary saccharides in vascular plants and are an important source of carbon for soil microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, fungi, etc.)…”

One-year measurements of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) markers in the Paris region (France): Concentrations, gas/particle partitioning and SOA source apportionment

“…For instance, for primary sources, levoglucosan is commonly used to trace biomass burning emissions, polyols for biogenic emissions (fungal spores), hopanes for vehicular emissions, etc. (Cass, 1998;Samaké et al, 2019aSamaké et al, , 2019bSchauer et al, 1996;Simoneit et al, 1999).…”

Disparities in particulate matter (PM<sub>10</sub>) origins and oxidative potential at a city-scale (Grenoble, France) – Part I: Source apportionment at three neighbouring sites

“…Furthermore, anhydro-sugars and saccharides were analysed by a High Performance Liquid Chromatography with Pulsed Amperometric Detection (HPLC-PAD), using a Thermo-Fisher ICS 5000 + HPLC equipped with 4 mm diameter Metrosep Carb 2×150 mm column and 50 mm pre-column in isocratic mode with 15% of an eluent of sodium hydroxide (200 mM) and sodium acetate (4 mM) and 85% water, at 1 ml min -1 . This method notably allowed the quantification of anhydrous saccharides (levoglucosan and mannosan), polyols (arabitol and mannitol), and glucose as tracers of biomass burning and primary biogenic aerosols (Samake et al, 2018;Waked et al, 2014).…”