Publication Date

10-2020

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Natural Science and Mathematics, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Keywords

Chemistry, Atmospheric chemistry, Photochemistry, Iron

Abstract

Atmospheric iron solubility varies depending on whether the particles are collected in rural or urban areas, with urban areas showing increased iron solubility. In this study, we investigate if the iron species present in different environments affects its ultimate solubility. Field data are presented from the Platte River Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment (PRAPPE), aimed at understanding the interactions between organic carbon and trace elements in atmospheric particulate matter (PM). 24-hr PM2.5 samples were collected during the summer and winter (2016–2017), at three different sites on the Eastern Colorado plains: an urban, agricultural, and a mixed site. Downtown Denver had an average total and water-soluble iron air concentration of 181.2 and 7.7 ng m−3, respectively. Platteville, the mixed site, had an average of total iron of 76.1 ng m−3, with average water-soluble iron concentration of 9.1 ng m−3. Jackson State Park (rural/agricultural) had the lowest total iron average of 31.5 ng m−3 and the lowest water-soluble iron average, 1.3 ng m−3. The iron oxidation state and chemical speciation of 97 samples across all sites and seasons was probed by X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The most common iron phases observed were almandine (Fe₃Al₂Si₃O₁₂) (Denver 21%, Platteville 16%, Jackson 24%), magnetite (Fe3O4) (Denver 9%, Platteville 4%, Jackson 5%) and Fe (III)dextran (Denver 5%, Platteville 13%, Jackson 5%), a surrogate for Fe-organic complexes. Additionally, native iron [Fe(0)] was found in significant amounts at all sites. No correlation was observed between iron solubility and iron oxidation state or chemical speciation.

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the authors. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

This article was originally published as:

Salazar, J. R., Pfotenhauer, D. J., Leresche, F., Rosario-Ortiz, F. L., Hannigan, M. P., Fakra, S. C., & Majestic, B. J. (2020). Iron speciation in PM2.5 from urban, agriculture, and mixed environments in Colorado, USA. Earth and Space Science, 7(10), e2020EA001262. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EA001262

Data is available at: https://doi.org/10.56902/Chem.Data.2020.1

Rights Holder

Joseph R. Salazar, David J. Pfotenhauer, Frank Leresche, Fernando L. Rosario-Ortiz, Michael P. Hannigan, Sirine C. Fakra, Brian Majestic

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

10 pgs

File Size

2.2 MB

Publication Title

Earth and Space Science

Volume

7

First Page

1

Last Page

10

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