Development of an improved optical transmission technique for black carbon (BC) analysis

A new optical transmission technique for black carbon (BC) analysis was developed to minimize interferences due to scattering effects in filter samples. A standard thermal analysis method (VDI, 1999) is used to link light attenuation by the filter samples to elemental carbon (EC) concentration. Scattering effects are minimized by immersion of the filters in oil of a similar refractive index, as is often done for microscopy purposes. Light attenuation was measured using both a white light source and a red LED of 650 nm. The usual increase in overestimation of BC concentrations with decreasing BC amount in filter samples was found considerably reduced. Some effects of BC properties (e.g. fractal dimension, microstructure and size distribution) on the specific attenuation coefficient B_ATN, however, are still present for the treated samples. B_ATN was found close to 1 m² g⁻¹ for dry-dispersed industrial BC and 7 m² g⁻¹ for nebulized BC. Good agreement was found between the oil immersion, integrating sphere and a polar photometer technique and Mie calculations. The average specific attenuation coefficient of ambient samples in oil varied between 7 and 11 m² g⁻¹ for white light and 6 and 9 m² g⁻¹ for red light (LED). B_ATN was found to have much less site variation for the treated than for the untreated samples. The oil immersion technique improved also the correlation with thermally analyzed EC. This new immersion technique therefore presents a considerable improvement over conventional optical transmission techniques and may therefore serve as a simple, fast and cost-effective alternative to thermal methods.