Molecular composition of fresh and aged aerosols from residential wood combustion and gasoline car with modern emission mitigation technology

Emissions from road traffic and residential heating contribute to urban air pollution. Advances in emission reduction technologies may alter the composition of emissions and affect their fate during atmospheric processing. Here, emissions of a gasoline car and a wood stove, both equipped with modern emission mitigation technology, were photochemically aged in an oxidation flow reactor to the equivalent of one to five days of photochemical aging. Fresh and aged exhausts were analyzed by ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry. The gasoline car equipped with a three-way catalyst and a gasoline particle filter emitted minor primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5), but aging led to formation of particulate low-volatile, oxygenated and highly nitrogen-containing compounds, formed from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and gases incl. NOx, SO2, and NH3. Reduction of the particle concentration was also observed for the application of an electrostatic precipitator with residential wood combustion but with no significant effect on the chemical composition of PM2.5. Comparing the effect of short and medium photochemical exposures on PM2.5 of both emission sources indicates a similar trend for formation of new organic compounds with increased carbon oxidation state and nitrogen content. The overall bulk compositions of the studied emission exhausts became more similar by aging, with many newly formed elemental compositions being shared. However, the presence of particulate matter in wood combustion results in differences in the molecular properties of secondary particles, as some compounds were preserved during aging.