Sulfur aerosol, flame photometric detector

Because the FPD responds to both aerosol and gaseous sulfur species, it has also been possible to modify these instruments to continuously measure aerosol sulfur by selectively removing gaseous sulfur compounds with a lead(II) oxide-glycerol coated denuder (55). Use of such an instrument for airborne measurements of aerosol sulfur in and around broken clouds has been reported (57). In principle, speciation between aerosol sulfate, disulfate, and sulfuric acid by selective thermal decomposition (58, 59) can also be achieved. Flame photometric detectors have also been used as selective detectors for gas chromatography. Thornton and Bandy (60) reported the use of a chromatographic system with a flame photometric detector for airborne measurement of S02 and OCS with a detection limit of 25 pptrv. 

On-line measurements of the sulfur content of atmospheric aerosols have been made by removing gaseous sulfur species from the aerosol and then analyzing the particles for sulfur with a flame photometric detector (24) or by using an electrostatic precipitator to chop the aerosol particles from the gas so that the sulfur content could be measured by the difference in flame photometric detector response with and without particles present. These and similar methods could be extended to the analysis of size-classified samples to provide on-line size-resolved aerosol composition data, although the analytical methods would have to be extremely sensitive to achieve the size resolution possible in size distribution analysis. 

Continuous Sampling and Determination. There are no truly continuous techniques for the direct determination of sulfuric acid or other strong acid species in atmospheric aerosols. The closest candidate method is a further modification of the sensitivity-enhanced, flame photometric detector, in which two detectors are used, one with a room-temperature de-nuder and one with a denuder tube heated to about 120 °C. Sulfuric acid is potentially determined as the difference between the two channels. In fact, a device based on this approach did not perform well in ambient air sampling (Tanner and Springston, unpublished data, 1990). Even with the SF6-doped H.2 fuel gas for enhanced sensitivity, the limit of detection is unsuitably high (5 xg/m3 or greater) because of the difficulty in calibrating the two separate FPD channels with aerosol sulfates. 

In the fourth type of identification the chemical composition of particles is studied in situ. By suitable chemical aerosol instruments the concentration and the size distribution of certain elements can be continuously monitored. The flame photometry of sodium containing particles (e.g. Hobbs, 1971) is a good example for such a method. Recently flame photometric detectors have also been developed to measure aerosol sulfur in the atmosphere (e.g. Kittelson et at., 1978). 

Kittelson, D. B., McKenzie, R.. Vermeersch, M., Dorman, F., Pui, D., Linne, M., Liu, B. and Whitby, K., 1978 Total sulfur aerosol concentration with an electrostatically pulsed flame photometric detector system. Atmospheric Environment 12, 105-111. 

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