The key aims of this project were: (i) investigation of atmospheric nitrogen deposition, focused on discrimination between bulk, wet and dry deposition, and between particulate matter and gas phase, (ii) accurate quantification of the contributions of dissolved organic and inorganic nitrogen to each type of deposition, and (iii) exploration of the origin and potential sources of atmospheric water soluble organic nitrogen (WSON). This project was particularly focused on the WSON fraction because, despite it being a potentially important source of bioavailable reactive nitrogen, a number of questions regarding its deposition mechanism (wet vs. dry), composition and origin (natural, anthropogenic or mixed) remain unanswered. There are two major difficulties in WSON determination: (i) the diversity of organic nitrogen compounds compared with the inorganic forms, and (ii) the lack of a direct determination method: the derivation of organic nitrogen concentrations in an aqueous sample involves the determination of the dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) species concentration, comprising nitrate and ammonium, the determination of the total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) concentration, and the subtraction of the DIN concentrations from the TDN concentration. TDN determination requires a preparatory digestion step: high-temperature catalytic oxidation was the method used in this study. Ion chromatography (IC) was the method of choice for nitrate determination, whilst ammonium determination was by IC for rain samples, and by flow injection analysis for air samples collected into aqueous media. This thesis is structured in 3 main parts: the first part examines weekly rain data over a period of 22 months from June 2005 to March 2007 collected in 2 types of rain collector (bulk deposition and “dry+wet” deposition) located in a semi-rural area 15 km southwest of Edinburgh, UK (N55°51′44″, W3°12′19″). Bulk deposition collectors were the standard rain gauges used in the UK national network for monitoring precipitation composition. “Dry+wet” deposition collectors were flushing rain gauges equipped with a rain detector, a spray nozzle, a 2-way valve and two independent bottles to collect funnel washings (dry deposition) and true wet deposition. A key objective in this part of the work was the accurate quantification of inorganic and organic water-soluble nitrogen species contribution to each type of deposition. On average, for the 27 weekly samples with 3 valid replicates for the 2 types of collectors, DON represented 23% of the TDN in bulk deposition. Dry deposition of particles and gas on the funnel surface, rather than rain, contributed over half of all N-containing species (inorganic and organic). Some discrepancies were found between bulk and flushing rain gauges, for deposition of both TDN and DON, suggesting biological conversion and loss of inorganic N in the flushing samplers. The second stage of this project was the investigation of in situ atmospheric concentrations of WSN species, both organic and inorganic. Simultaneous daily measurements of ammonium, nitrate and WSON were made between July and November 2008 at the same semi-rural site in south-east Scotland. Discrimination between material from the gas and particle phases was achieved by means of Cofer scrubbers and PTFE membrane filters, respectively. Average concentrations of NH3 (determined as NH4+), NO2/HNO3 (determined as NO3-) and WSON in the gas phase were 82 ± 54 nmol N m-3, 2.6 ± 2.5 nmol N m-3 and 18 ± 12 nmol N m-3 respectively, and in the particle phase were 20 ± 24 nmol N m-3, 10 ± 9 nmol N m-3 and 8 ± 7 nmol N m-3 respectively (± represent standard deviation across all valid daily samples, not error of triplicate samples). Except for oxidised inorganic N, average concentrations in the gas phase were larger than in the particle phase. No evidence of solely agricultural or solely combustion sources of WSON was found, as no correlation in either phase between WSON and either NH4+ or NO3- could be established. The final stage of this project was to gain a broader picture of nitrogen deposition across Europe. Rain samples were analysed for TDN and DIN from a network of 21 different sampling locations, from the south of Portugal to the north of Finland. The average DON contribution across the 21 sampling sites was ~ 19% and, according to the data gathered in this study, DON species appeared largely unrelated specifically to agricultural or to combustion nitrogen sources, although the results varied widely from site to site. Overall, this work has shown that ON and its deposition comprises a significant component of total atmospheric reactive nitrogen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:562986 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Benítez, Juan Manuel González |
| Contributors | Cape, Neil. : Heal, Mathew |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/4635 |
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