Characterization of airborne individual particles collected in an urban area, a satellite city and a clean air area in Beijing, 2001

Collection campaigns for PM 10 and PM 2.5 have been conducted in a northwestern Beijing urban area in monthly periods over 2001, with 7 days collection per month. The samples were also collected simultaneously in a satellite city, Nankou, and a clean air area near the Ming Tombs Reservoir (MTR) over the domestic heating (March) and non-heating (July/August) periods in 2001 (both for one week). To assist the analysis, three types of ‘source’ particulate matter (PM) samples were taken. These consisted of coal combustion ash collected on top of a coke oven; dust storm particles collected during dust storm periods; and roadside PM 10 collected on a major road in Beijing. Monitoring results reveal that, in the urban area, particle mass levels were higher in winter than in other seasons. The 1-week/month average PM 10 mass levels were over 250 μg m −3 in winter. The particle mass levels in the satellite city were slightly lower than those at the urban site, and the lowest mass levels occurred at the MTR site. The morphology and chemical composition of individual airborne particles were determined by scanning electron microscopy, and image analysis was employed to study the number-size distributions. The number-size distributions of mineral particles showed that those in the Asia-Dust storm (ADS) collections are mostly coarser than 1 μm , while mineral particles of the non-ADS collections are predominately finer than 1 μm . The particles in the respirable (