As with other current organic carbon and elemental carbon (OC/EC) procedures, Thermal-Optical analysis is method-defined. This unit has been designed to specifically address the problems observed in other methods by assigning carbon to either the organic or the elemental fraction. By careful system control and continuous monitoring of the optical absorbance of the sample during analysis, this method is able to both prevent any undesired oxidation of original elemental carbon and make corrections for the inevitable generation of carbon char produced by the pyrolitic conversion of organics into elemental carbon. The OC/EC instrument utilized by EAI is used to analyze both bulk samples, and aerosol particles collected on quartz or glass fiber filters. The accuracy of this method for measuring total carbon content can be ascertained by analyzing a known quantity of carbon, a function that is performed on a regular basis as part of the quality assurance program. Known quantities of sucrose and/or organic compounds are applied to blank quartz fiber filters, analyzed, and the OC/EC results are compared to the known presence of OC and EC. Relative standard deviations are less than 5%. The lower detection limit of this method is on the order of 0.2g/cm2 for both OC & EC.

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