• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2013

The study of carbonaceous aerosols in the atmosphere is critical to understand the role of aerosols in human health and climate. Using standardized thermal optical transmittance methods, organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and water soluble organic carbon (WSOC) were determined using a combustion sampling system for four types of agricultural crop residues (rice straw, red pepper stems, soybean stems, and green perilla stems) and eight types of forest trees (pine stems, pine needles, ginkgo stems, ginkgo leaves, maple stems, maple leaves, cherry stems, and cherry leaves). The aerosol particles between 0.056 and $5.6{\mu}m$ in size were analyzed using a Micro-Orifice Uniform Deposit Impactor (MOUDI). In the current study, the Carbonaceous Thermal Distribution (CTD) by carbon analyzer was discussed in order to understand the carbon fractions from the twelve types of biomass burning. Also, the concentration of OC, EC, WSOC, and water insoluble organic carbon (WIOC) detected in the emissions were described.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2010

Water soluble organic and inorganic species are important components in atmospheric aerosol particles and may act as cloud condensation nuclei to indirectly affect the climate. To characterize organic and elemental carbon(OC and EC), water-soluble organic carbon(WSOC) and inorganic ionic species contents, daily $PM_{2.5}$ measurements were made during the wintertime at an urban site of Gwangju. Average concentrations of WSOC, $NO_3^-$, $SO_4^{2-}$ and $NH_4^+$, which are major components in the water-soluble fraction in PM2.5, are 2.11, 5.73, 3.51 and $3.31{\mu}g/m^3$, respectively, representing 12.0(2.9~23.9%), 21.0(12.9~37.6%), 11.6(2.5~25.9%) and 11.7%(3.8~18.6%) of the $PM_{2.5}$, respectively. Abundance of water soluble organic compounds ranged from 5.4 to 35.9% of total water soluble organic and inorganic components with a mean of 17.6%. Even though the sampling was performed during the winter, the average contributions of secondary OC and WSOC, as deduced from primary OC/EC(or WSOC/EC) ratio, were relatively high, accounting for 17.9%(0~44.4%) of the total OC and 11.2%(0.0~51.4%) of the total WSOC, respectively. During the sampling period, low $SO_4^{2-}/(SO_4^{2-}+SO_2$) ratio of 0.14(0.03~0.32) and relative humidity condition in the winter time suggest an possibility of impact of long-range transport and/or aqueous transformation processes such as metal catalyzed oxidation of sulfur, in-cloud processes, etc.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.79-94
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• 2011

Black carbon (BC), a kind of high surface area carbonaceous material (HSACM), was isolated from Andong lake sediment. Sorption and desorption kinetics of naphthalene (Naph) and phenanthrene (Phen) in organic carbon (OC) and BC in the Andong lake sediment were investigated. Several kinetic models such as one-site mass transfer model (OSMTM), two-compartment first-order kinetic model (TCFOKM), and a newly proposed modified two-compartment first-order kinetic model (MTCFOKM) were used to describe the sorption and desorption kinetics. The MTCFOKM was the best fitting model. The MTCFOKM for sorption kinetics showed that i) the sorbed amounts of PAHs onto BC were higher than those onto OC, consistent with BET surface area; ii) the equilibration time for sorption onto BC was longer than those onto OC due to smaller size of micropore ($11.67{\AA}$) of BC than OC ($38.18{\AA}$); iii) initial sorption velocity of BC was higher than OC; and iv) the slow sorption velocity in BC caused the later equilibrium time than OC even though the fast sorption velocity was early completed in both BC and OC. The MTCFOKM also described the desorption of PAHs from the OC and BC well. After desorption, the remaining fractions of PAHs in BC were higher than those in OC due to stronger PAHs-BC binding. The remaining fractions increased with aging for both BC and OC.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.79-95
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• 2017

A number of field studies have provided evidence that biomass burning is one of the major global sources of atmospheric particles. In this study, we have collected $PM_{2.5}$ emitted from biomass burning combusted at open burning and laboratory chamber situations. The open burning experiment was conducted with the cooperation of 9 farmers in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, while the chamber experiment was designed to evaluate the characteristics of chemical components among 14 different plant species. The analyzed categories were $PM_{2.5}$ mass concentration, organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), ionic components ($Na^+$, ${NH_4}^+$, $Ca^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $K^+$, $Cl^-$, ${NO_3}^-$ and ${SO_4}^{2-}$), water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), water-insoluble inorganic carbon (WIOC), char-EC and soot-EC. OC was the dominant chemical component, accounting for the major fraction of primary $PM_{2.5}$ derived from biomass burning, followed by EC. Ionic components contributed a small portion of $PM_{2.5}$, as well as that of $K^+$. In some cases, $K^+$ is used as biomass burning tracer; however, the observations obtained in this study suggest that $K^+$ may not always be suitable as a tracer for biomass burning emissions. Also, the results of all the samples tested indicate relatively low values of char-EC compared to soot-EC. From our results, careful consideration should be given to the usage of $K^+$ and char-EC as indicators of biomass burning. The calculated ratios of WSOC/OC and WIOC/OC were 55.7% and 44.3% on average for all samples, which showed no large difference between them. The organic materials to OC ratio, which is often used for chemical mass closure model, was roughly estimated by two independent methods, resulting in a factor of 1.7 for biomass burning emissions.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.91-96
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• 1997

In order to investigate the behavior of particulate carbon and benzo(a)pyrene(B(a)P) in the ambient air, suspended particle matters were collected from April, 1990 to February, 1992, and total carbon(TC), organic carbon(OC), elemental carbon(EC) and B(a)P were measured by an elemental analyzer and a HPLC. The results were as follows the average concentration of TC was 38.6 $\mug/m^3$ and its concentration was higher in winter(45.4 $\mug/m^3$) and fa11(44.3 $\mug/m^3$) than in summer(36.8 $\mug/m^3$) and spring(28.9 $\mug/m^3$). The monthly concentration trends both of EC and OC was similar, but seasonal variation of EC concentrations was larger than that of OC. The average concentration of B (a)P was 2.2 ng/m$^3$, and was higher in winter(4.1 ng/m$^3$) and fall(3.2 ng/m$^3$) than in spring(1.2 ng/m$^3$) and summer(0.6 ng/m$^3$). The seasonal behavior of carbon and B(a)P was to similar except for summer. The correlation coefficient(r) between EC and B(a)P was 0.71, and the correlation coefficient(r) between OC and B(a)P was 0.66.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.19 no.E1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2003

To characterize airborne particulate carbon and its temporal variation in the heavily industrialized metropolitan city, Seoul in South Korea, aerosol sampling was performed from 1986 to 1996. Correlation coefficients of elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC) with mass concentration of fine particles ($\underline{\leq}$2.1 ${\mu}m$) are 0.73 and 0.51, respectively. EC concentrations of the fine particle mode are 10.1, 5.9, 4.5, and 7.4 ${\mu}g\;m^{-3}$ in winter, spring, summer, and autumn, respectively. On the other hand, OC concentration shows maximum value in winter and followed by autumn, summer, and spring. A seasonal peak in the ratio of OC to EC in fine particles was observed during the summer photochemical season from June to August. Concentrations of EC and OC in Asian dust storm events are generally higher than in non- Asian dust storm events except in 1990. The difference of EC concentrations between Asian dust storm periods and non-Asian dust storm periods are much larger than those of OC concentrations. There are slight increases of EC concentration between 1987 and 1990 and a gradual decrease between 1990 and 1996.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.345-355
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• 2015

Carbonaceous compounds in the atmospheric particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than or equal to a nominal $10{\mu}m$ ($PM_{10}$) were analyzed for the samples collected during the period of August 2006 to August 2007 at Jongro in Seoul. A total 18 dicarboxylic acids (DCAs) and levoglucosan, as well as organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and water soluble organic carbon (WSOC), were analyzed. Distinctive seasonal patterns of the concentrations of OC, EC, and WSOC including levoglucosan were observed with the highest concentrations in winter and the lowest concentrations in summer. In addition, OC, WSOC, and most of DCAs showed also higher concentration in summer than in winter. Using the seasonal patterns and relevant indicative ratios (WSOC/EC and $OC_{sec}/OC_{tot}$) of the carbonaceous compounds, it was verified that (1) primary emission sources were elevated in winter, and (2) the formation of secondary OC increased due to the prompted photochemical reaction in summer. Results from this study also suggest that some organic compounds were likely attributed to longrange transport.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-72
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• 2011

This study describes the impact of positive sampling artifact caused by a filter-based sampling in the determination of ambient organic carbon (OC). Three different sampling media combinations were employed for this investigation: (1) Quartz filter-alone (Q-alone), (2) quartz filter behind quartz-fiber filter (QBQ), and (3) quartz filter and quartz filter behind Teflon filter (Q-QBT). The measurement of ambient OC was carried out at a semi-urban site near oceanside at the end of November of 2008. It was found that Q-alone sampling configuration resulted in a higher OC than QBQ and Q-QBT by 14% and 28%, respectively due to no correction for positive artifact caused by adsorption of gas-phase OC onto the filter. A lower quantity of OC was collected from the backup quartz filter on QBQ than that from Q-QBT. A possible explanation is that the front quartz filter of QBQ was not fully saturated with gas-phase OC during the sampling period, allowing smaller amount of gas-phase OC to reach the backup quartz filter. The contribution of positive artifact to $PM_{2.5}$ mass was approximately 2.15 ${\mu}g/m^3$ which is equivalent to 6% in terms of Q-QBT sampling configuration. The positive artifact was found to be more dominated during summer than during winter, showing temperature dependence. It was concluded that Q-QBT sampling configuration offers less impact of positive artifact on ambient OC sampling than QBQ in quantification of OC.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.893-899
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• 2008

Changes in spectroscopic characteristics and pyrene binding coefficients of terrestrial dissolved organic matters(DOM) were investigated during microbial incubation. The incubation studies were conducted for 21 days using a leaf litter DOM and a soilderived DOM with an inoculum from a river. The dissolved organic carbon(DOC), the specific UV absorbance(SUVA), the synchronous fluorescence spectra, and the pyrene organic carbon-normalized binding coefficient(K$_{oc}$) of the DOM were measured at the incubation days of 0, 3, 7, 14 and 21. After the 21-day incubation, DOC were reduced to 61% and 51% of the original concentrations of the litter DOM and the soil-derived DOM, respectively. Comparison of the spectroscopic characteristics before and after the incubation revealed that the SUVA, the fulvic-like fluorescence(FLF), the humic-like fluorescence(HLF) of the different DOM were enhanced by the incubation whereas the protein-like fluorescence(PLF) was reduced. This indicates that more aromatic and humic-like compounds were enriched during the biodegradation process while biodegradable and weak carbon structures were depleted. Irrespective of the DOM sources, SUVA values showed a positive relationship with pyrene K$_{oc}$ with a correlation coefficient of 0.97. The FLF and HLF also exhibited good correlations with K$_{oc}$ values although different regression equations were obtained from the different DOM. Our results suggest that the selected spectroscopic characteristics could be good estimation indices for the changes of the binding reactivity of DOM for hydrophobic organic contaminants during biodegradation process.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.24-26
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• 1999