Measurements of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by proton transfer
reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) are reported from recent airborne and surface
based field campaigns. The Southeast Texas Tetroon Study (SETTS) was a project
within the TEXAQS 2005 field campaign, conducting airborne measurements that
investigated the nocturnal Lagrangian transport of industrial plumes downwind of the
Houston, Texas metropolitan area. On the evening of July 26-27, a polluted air mass
with elevated mass 43, mass 45 and mass 57 VOCs along with elevated O3, CO, and
NOx was tracked from the Houston metropolitan area to an area northwest of
Shreveport, LA, a distance of over 200 miles. This campaign demonstrated that the PTRMS
is capable of tracking a VOC plume over large distances and these measurements
indicate that transport of VOCs, particularly light alkenes and their oxidation products,
out of the Houston metropolitan area may need to be considered by areas downwind of
the Houston area when they are determining how to attain their air quality goals.
During the MILAGRO field campaign in March 2006 VOCs were measured by
PTR-MS instrumentation on a rooftop in the urban mixed residential and industrial area north northeast of downtown Mexico City. Diurnal profiles of weekday and
weekend/holiday aromatic VOC concentrations clearly show the influence of vehicular
traffic during the morning rush hour time period and during the afternoon hours although
a separate late afternoon peak is not seen. Plumes of toluene elevated as much as 216
parts per billion by volume (ppbv) and ethyl acetate elevated as much as 183 ppbv above
background levels were observed during the late night and early morning hours. These
plumes indicate the probability of significant industrial sources of these two compounds
in the region. The high levels of toluene measured by our PTR-MS exceed levels that
would be predicted by examination of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA)
emission inventory and when these VOC measurements are integrated with
measurements conducted throughout the MCMA a better understanding of both the
overall spatial pattern of VOCs in the MCMA as well as its variability will be attained.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1040 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Fortner, Edward Charles |
| Contributors | Zhang, Renyi |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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