TY - JOUR
T1 - Source apportionment of ultrafine particles in urban Europe
AU - Garcia-Marlès, Meritxell
AU - Lara, Rosa
AU - Reche, Cristina
AU - Pérez, Noemí
AU - Tobías, Aurelio
AU - Savadkoohi, Marjan
AU - Beddows, David
AU - Salma, Imre
AU - Vörösmarty, Máté
AU - Weidinger, Tamás
AU - Hueglin, Christoph
AU - Mihalopoulos, Nikos
AU - Grivas, Georgios
AU - Kalkavouras, Panayiotis
AU - Ondracek, Jakub
AU - Zikova, Nadezda
AU - Niemi, Jarkko V.
AU - Manninen, Hanna E.
AU - Green, David C.
AU - Tremper, Anja H.
AU - Norman, Michael
AU - Vratolis, Stergios
AU - Diapouli, Evangelia
AU - Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos
AU - Gómez-Moreno, Francisco J.
AU - Alonso-Blanco, Elisabeth
AU - Wiedensohler, Alfred
AU - Weinhold, Kay
AU - Merkel, Maik
AU - Bastian, Susanne
AU - Hoffmann, Barbara
AU - Altug, Hicran
AU - Petit, Jean Eudes
AU - Acharja, Prodip
AU - Favez, Olivier
AU - Santos, Sebastiao Martins Dos
AU - Putaud, Jean Philippe
AU - Dinoi, Adelaide
AU - Contini, Daniele
AU - Casans, Andrea
AU - Casquero-Vera, Juan Andrés
AU - Crumeyrolle, Suzanne
AU - Bourrianne, Eric
AU - Poppel, Martine Van
AU - Dreesen, Freja E.
AU - Harni, Sami
AU - Timonen, Hilkka
AU - Lampilahti, Janne
AU - Petäjä, Tuukka
AU - Pandolfi, Marco
AU - Hopke, Philip K.
AU - Harrison, Roy M.
AU - Alastuey, Andrés
AU - Querol, Xavier
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s)
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - There is a body of evidence that ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm) might have significant impacts on health. Accordingly, identifying sources of UFP is essential to develop abatement policies. This study focuses on urban Europe, and aims at identifying sources and quantifying their contributions to particle number size distribution (PNSD) using receptor modelling (Positive Matrix Factorization, PMF), and evaluating long-term trends of these source contributions using the non-parametric Theil-Sen's method. Datasets evaluated include 14 urban background (UB), 5 traffic (TR), 4 suburban background (SUB), and 1 regional background (RB) sites, covering 18 European and 1 USA cities, over the period, when available, from 2009 to 2019. Ten factors were identified (4 road traffic factors, photonucleation, urban background, domestic heating, 2 regional factors and long-distance transport), with road traffic being the primary contributor at all UB and TR sites (56–95 %), and photonucleation being also significant in many cities. The trends analyses showed a notable decrease in traffic-related UFP ambient concentrations, with statistically significant decreasing trends for the total traffic-related factors of −5.40 and −2.15 % yr−1 for the TR and UB sites, respectively. This abatement is most probably due to the implementation of European emissions standards, particularly after the introduction of diesel particle filters (DPFs) in 2011. However, DPFs do not retain nucleated particles generated during the dilution of diesel exhaust semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). Trends in photonucleation were more diverse, influenced by a reduction in the condensation sink potential facilitating new particle formation (NPF) or by a decrease in the emissions of UFP precursors. The decrease of primary PM emissions and precursors of UFP also contributed to the reduction of urban and regional background sources.
AB - There is a body of evidence that ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm) might have significant impacts on health. Accordingly, identifying sources of UFP is essential to develop abatement policies. This study focuses on urban Europe, and aims at identifying sources and quantifying their contributions to particle number size distribution (PNSD) using receptor modelling (Positive Matrix Factorization, PMF), and evaluating long-term trends of these source contributions using the non-parametric Theil-Sen's method. Datasets evaluated include 14 urban background (UB), 5 traffic (TR), 4 suburban background (SUB), and 1 regional background (RB) sites, covering 18 European and 1 USA cities, over the period, when available, from 2009 to 2019. Ten factors were identified (4 road traffic factors, photonucleation, urban background, domestic heating, 2 regional factors and long-distance transport), with road traffic being the primary contributor at all UB and TR sites (56–95 %), and photonucleation being also significant in many cities. The trends analyses showed a notable decrease in traffic-related UFP ambient concentrations, with statistically significant decreasing trends for the total traffic-related factors of −5.40 and −2.15 % yr−1 for the TR and UB sites, respectively. This abatement is most probably due to the implementation of European emissions standards, particularly after the introduction of diesel particle filters (DPFs) in 2011. However, DPFs do not retain nucleated particles generated during the dilution of diesel exhaust semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). Trends in photonucleation were more diverse, influenced by a reduction in the condensation sink potential facilitating new particle formation (NPF) or by a decrease in the emissions of UFP precursors. The decrease of primary PM emissions and precursors of UFP also contributed to the reduction of urban and regional background sources.
KW - Air quality
KW - New particle formation
KW - Particle number size distributions
KW - Positive matrix factorization
KW - Traffic emissions
KW - Ultrafine particles
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85209538915
U2 - 10.1016/j.envint.2024.109149
DO - 10.1016/j.envint.2024.109149
M3 - Article
C2 - 39566442
AN - SCOPUS:85209538915
SN - 0160-4120
VL - 194
JO - Environment international
JF - Environment international
M1 - 109149
ER -
SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities