The First Combined Thermal Desorption Aerosol Gas Chromatograph—Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (TAG-AMS)

Abstract

To address the critical need for improving the chemical characterization of the organic composition of ambient particulate matter, we introduce a combined thermal desorption aerosol gas chromatograph—aerosol mass spectrometer (TAG-AMS). The TAG system provides in-situ speciation of organic chemicals in ambient aerosol particles with hourly time resolution for marker compounds indicative of sources and transformation processes. However, by itself the TAG cannot separate by particle size and it typically speciates and quantifies only a fraction of the organic aerosol (OA) mass. The AMS is a real-time, in-situ instrument that provides quantitative size distributions and mass loadings for ambient fine OA and major inorganic fractions; however, by itself the AMS has limited ability for identification of individual organic compounds due to the electron impact ionization detection scheme used without prior molecular separation.