Affiliations: Department of Environmental Science and Engineering,
Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China | SKLLQG, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China | Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing
100081, China | Urban and Environment Science College, Northeast
Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
Abstract: The objective of this study was to characterize the mass
concentration and chemical composition of aerosol
particles(PM_{2.5}) collected at Tongliao(Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region, China), a site in Horqin Sand-land in northeast China.
During spring 2005, the mass concentration for PM_{2.5} was
(126 ± 71)μg/m^3 in average. Five dust storm
events were monitored with higher concentration of (255 ±
77)μg/m^3 in average than the non dusty days of (106
± 44)μg/m^3. Concentrations for 20 elements were
obtained by the PIXE method. Mass concentrations of Al, Mg, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Mn,
and V, which increased with the PM_{2.5} concentration, were
higher than the pollution elements (S, Cl, Zn, Ar, Se, Br, and Pb). Enrichment
factor relative to crust material was also calculated, which showed dust trace
elements were mainly from earth upper crust and pollution elements were
dominated the anthropogenic aerosols. The Si/Al, Ca/Al, and Fe/Al ratios in
PM_{2.5} samples at Tongliao were 4.07, 0.94, and 0.82,
respectively, which were remarkably different with those on other source
regions, such as "Western desert source region", "North desert source region"
and central Asia source. Air mass back-trajectory analysis identified three
kinds of general pathways were associated with the aerosol particle transport
to Tongliao, but have the similar elemental ratios, implying that elemental
signatures for dust aerosol from Horqin Sand-land were different with other
regions.
Keywords: dust aerosol, mass concentration, elemental composition, transport pathway
