Organic composition in the dry season rainwater of Guangzhou, China

This paper reports the results from a study of the organic composition of rainwater collected at Tianhe district of Guangzhou city, P.R. China, during the dry season. Several special setups of a pyrex bottle with a glass funnel were used for the collection of the rainwater. Three fractions (aliphatics, PAHs and fatty acids) were separated from the total extracted organic compounds and identified with GC-MS. The molecular diagnostic ratios were utilized for the source reconciliation. The aliphatic hydrocarbon and the biomarkers (triterpanes and steranes) distribution show a characteristic of the petrochemical source in the rainwater samples. The PAHs diagnostic ratios e.g. MP/P, MPI, Fl/ (Fl + Py)] indicated vehicular emissions. The fatty acids ratios (e.g. C_18:1/C_18:0 and C_18:2/C_18:0) reflect the contribution of cooking emissions, while the higher plant waxes play little part. Moreover, the values of MP/P, MPI, BaA/(BaA + CT) and BeP/(BeP + BaP) reflected the origin of the long-distance transportation to some extent. On the whole, for the dry season rainwater, all molecular diagnostic ratios indicated the complexity of the organic composition of the rain, which have the characteristics of both a local emission contribution and a long-distance transportation contribution.