• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.439-458
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• 2005

An automated analysis system for water soluble constituents in $PM_{2.5}$ has been developed. The system consists of a high capacity multi tube diffusion scrubber (MTDS), a low temperature particle impactor (LTPI), and two ion (anion and cation) chromatography (IC) systems. Atmospheric particles have been collected by passing sample air through a thermostated MTDS followed by a LTPI. This system allows simultaneous measurements of soluble ions in $PM_{2.5}$ at 30 minutes interval. At the air sampling flow rate of 1.0L/min, the detection limits of the overall system are in the order of tens of $ng/m^3$. This system has been successfully used for the measurement of particulate components of Seoul air from April 2003 to January 2004. $SO_4^{2-},\;NO_3^-,\;NH_4^+,\;NO_2^-,\;Cl^-,\;Na^+,\;K^+,\;Ca^{2+},\;and\;Mg^{2+}$ are the major ionic species for $PM_{2.5}$ at Seoul. Among them, $SO_4^{2-},\;NO_3^-\;and\;NH_4^+$ are the most abundant ions, contributed up to $86\%$ of the total and the concentrations were higher than those in any other urban sites in the world except for Chinese cities. There are high pollutant episodes which contribute about $15\~20\%$ of annual average values of the major ions. During the episode, the all parcels were transported from the asian continent and $PM_{2.5}$ were significantly neutralized. This suggests that aged and long range transported pollutants caused the high pollutant episodes. They showed a distinct daily and seasonal variations:they showed a peak in the early morning caused by the night-time accumulation of particulate matters. Atmospheric reactions including gas-to-particle reactions and inter-particle reactions and meteorological parameters including relative humidity and ambient temperature were described with related to the $PM_{2.5}$ 5 concentrations. All of the ionic species showed higher concentrations during the spring than those for summer and winter.