Formation of submicron sulfate and organic aerosols in the outflow from the urban region of the Pearl River Delta in China

Size-resolved chemical compositions of non-refractory submicron aerosols were measured using a quadrupole Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer at a rural site near Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) of China in the summer of 2006. Two cases characterized as the outflows from the PRD urban region with plumes of high SO2 concentration were investigated. The evolution of sulfate size distributions was observed on a timescale of several hours. Namely mass concentrations of sulfate in the condensation mode (with vacuum aerodynamic diameters (Dva) < 300 nm) increased at a rate of about 0.17–0.37 ppbv h−1 during the daytime. This finding was consistent with the sulfuric acid production rates of about 0.17–0.3 ppbv h−1, as calculated from the observed gas-phase concentrations of OH (∼3.3 × 106–1.7 × 107 cm−3) and SO2 (∼3–21.2 ppbv). This implies that the growth of sulfate in the condensation mode was mainly due to gas-phase oxidation of SO2. The observed rapid increase was caused mainly by the concurrent high concentrations of OH and SO2 in the air mass. The evolution of the mass size distributions of m/z 44, a tracer for oxygenated organic aerosol (OOA), was very similar to that of sulfate. The mass loadings of m/z 44 were strongly correlated with those of sulfate (r2 = 0.99) in the condensation mode, indicating that OOA might also be formed by the gas-phase oxidation of volatile organic compound (VOC) precursors. It is likely that sulfate and OOA were internally mixed throughout the whole size range in the air mass.