Particulate sulfur analysis: Application to high time resolution aircraft sampling in plumes

Abstract Application of vaporization flame-photometric detector (FPD) method for analysis of submicrogram amounts (> 0.3 μg) of atmospheric particulate sulfur for samples collected in plumes is described. Aerosol is deposited on a portion (0.3 cm 2 ) of a light weight, low pressure drop glass-fiber filter with a consistent, low sulfur blank of 0.36–0.5μg cm −2 . Water extracts are analyzed for sulfur with a precision of 2.5%, while the precision of the entire analytical procedure is estimated to be 5%. The aerosol sampling is performed with a sequential two-stage tape sampler which separates the ambient aerosol in coarse (>3 μm) and fine ( −3 . It was found feasible to measure the average sulfur concentration obtained during a single traverse across a large plume. The method has been used for aerosol sampling and sulfur analysis of samples collected in power plant and urban-industrial plumes in the St. Louis area.