Source apportionment of carbonaceous aerosols
Carbonaceous aerosols are a major fraction of airborne particulate matter. They contribute to climate and health effects of the total aerosol burden of the atmosphere by counteracting the current trend of global warming and inducing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, respectively. In spite of this general importance, our knowledge on the sources of carbonaceous aerosols is still limited. 14C analysis is a unique source apportionment tool: it unambiguously separates fossil from non-fossil sources, as 14C has completely decayed in fossil fuels, whereas modern materials have the contemporary radiocarbon level. This approach allows a quantification of these sources for different aerosol fractions such as organic carbon (OC) and black carbon / elemental carbon (BC and EC, respectively).
