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Study on the Chemical Character of Water Soluble Organic Compounds in Fine Atmospheric Aerosol at the Jungfraujoch

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Abstract

In this study the chemical nature of the bulk of water soluble organic compounds in fine atmospheric aerosol collected during summer 1998 at the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland (3580 m asl) is characterised. The mass concentration of water soluble organic substances was similar to those of major inorganic ions, and the water soluble organic matter was found to be composed of two main fractions: (i) highly polyconjugated, acidic compounds with a varying degree of hydrophobicity and (ii) slightly polyconjugated, neutral and very hydrophilic compounds. The contribution of both fractions to the total water soluble organic carbon was about 50%. Separation into individual components was impossible either by HPLC or capillary electrophoresis which indicates the presence of a high number of chemically similar but not identical species. Results obtained by ultrafiltration and HPLC-MS have shown that the molecular weights are of the order of several hundreds. Most of the protonation constants for the acidic compounds determined by capillary electrophoresis were in the range 104–107.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Air Chemistry Group of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Veszprém, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Egyetem u. 10., H-8200, Veszprém, Hungary

    Zoltán Krivácsy, András Gelencsér, Gyula Kiss, Ernő Mészáros & Ágnes Molnár

  2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Veszprém, Egyetem u. 10., H-8200, Veszprém, Hungary

    András Hoffer, Tamás Mészáros, Zsolt Sárvári, Dóra Temesi & Bálint Varga

  3. Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

    Urs Baltensperger, Stephan Nyeki & Ernest Weingartner

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  1. Zoltán Krivácsy
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  2. András Gelencsér
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  3. Gyula Kiss
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  4. Ernő Mészáros
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Krivácsy, Z., Gelencsér, A., Kiss, G. et al. Study on the Chemical Character of Water Soluble Organic Compounds in Fine Atmospheric Aerosol at the Jungfraujoch. Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry 39, 235–259 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010637003083

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