Elemental Carbon Organic Carbon Analyzer for characterization and sourcing of carbonaceous aerosols

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Black carbon aerosol (BC) is the 2nd largest warming agent after CO2 but contributes the most uncertainty to climate modeling among all the pollutants due to its short retention time in the atmosphere and poorly understood mixing, deposition, and contribution from various emission sources. As BC aerosols from different sources, i.e., fossil fuel combustion vs. biomass burning, have distinct warming potentials, it is essential to quantify the contribution from the two types of sources to the atmospheric BC. Carbon isotopes (C13 and C14) are good tracer elements that can be used to quantify the apportionment of fossil BC and biomass BC. But first of all, we need to separate BC from the ambient aerosols for further isotopic analysis.