Articles | Volume 20, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5129-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5129-2020
Research article
 | 
30 Apr 2020
Research article |  | 30 Apr 2020

Characterization of the light-absorbing properties, chromophore composition and sources of brown carbon aerosol in Xi'an, northwestern China

Wei Yuan, Ru-Jin Huang, Lu Yang, Jie Guo, Ziyi Chen, Jing Duan, Ting Wang, Haiyan Ni, Yongming Han, Yongjie Li, Qi Chen, Yang Chen, Thorsten Hoffmann, and Colin O'Dowd

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Al-Naiema, I. M. and Stone, E. A.: Evaluation of anthropogenic secondary organic aerosol tracers from aromatic hydrocarbons, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 2053–2065, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-2053-2017, 2017. 
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Canonaco, F., Crippa, M., Slowik, J. G., Baltensperger, U., and Prévôt, A. S. H.: SoFi, an IGOR-based interface for the efficient use of the generalized multilinear engine (ME-2) for the source apportionment: ME-2 application to aerosol mass spectrometer data, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 3649–3661, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-3649-2013, 2013. 
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Short summary
We characterized light-absorbing properties, chromophore composition and sources of brown carbon (BrC) in Xi'an; identified three groups of light-absorbing organics; and quantified their contribution to overall BrC absorption. Our results showed that vehicle emissions and secondary formation are major sources of BrC in spring, coal combustion and vehicle emissions are major sources in fall, biomass burning and coal combustion become major sources in winter, and secondary BrC dominates in summer.
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