ИСТИНА

Aerosols generated by incomplete combustion of fossil fuels (FF) and biomass burning (BB) are major air pollutants. Methodology for estimations of source contribution to ambient particulates suggests the specific markers for each emission different from others. A complexity of multicomponent and source-specific PM emissions requires the characterization of individual particles. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) is a data analysis technique which is used for interpretation of electron microprobe analysis data and determination of particle types in ambient air with a large number of pollution sources. The extended approach HCA is developed for characterization of size-resolved particle data on characteristic groups with similar morphological and chemical composition according to source and fuel used. Clustering expert analysis assures the mean composition of groups closed to physico-chemical identifiable types of particles. This review presents the quantification of particulate microstructure of FF and BB emissions from various sources. We elaborate the sophisticated approach which allows quantifying the diesel/biofuel and wildfire sources and identifying the specific features that can serve as micromarkers of emission source. Identification of characteristic morphological and chemical features of aerosols emitted by modern diesel engines and from Opel Astra exhaust shows the most abundant group of soot particles of C and O content mostly. The source specific micromarker of biodiesel particles is a separate group enriched by Cl, K, and Na, the elements which are commonly recognized as biomarkers of biofuel combustion. Micromarkers of traffic emissions were identified in polluted air of a megacity. During an extreme smoke event carbonaceous particles and fly ash exhibited the microstructure in good agreement with elevated OC and EC fractions (Popovicheva et al., 2014). Exhausts from the main and auxiliary engines operated onboard of a ship burning heavy and distillate fuels are found different by impurities representative origin of fuels such as transition metals (V,Ni) containing group which may serve as a specific micromarker of heavy fuel using. Fundamental studies of BB in combustion chamber used the cluster analysis of smoke microstructure to apportion the emitted particles into major characteristic groups: soot and organic, which accounted for around 90% and 60% of total particle numbers emitted from flaming and smoldering fires, respectively (Popovicheva et al., 2015). BB of agriculture activity on fields influences the increased abundance of soot and organic group particles in the submicron fraction from 12% at low to 59% and 68% at moderate and high smoke levels, respectively (Popovicheva et al., 2016). State-of-the-art microscopic characterization of complex submicron aerosols may improve the identification of a source type in apportionment studies.