Abstract
Spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) are produced by the high-temperature combustion of fossil fuels and are emitted to the atmosphere. We examined the surface morphology and the chemical composition of SCPs in samples of surface sediment from five industrial cities each of Japan and China, using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). There exists a relationship between surface morphology and the chemical composition of SCPs in China, but not for SCPs in Japan. The chemical compositions of SCPs differ between Japan and China: those in Japan are S-rich, whereas those in China are Ti-rich. The results suggest that EDS can be used to identify China-derived SCPs in East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Muneki Mitamura and Eri Hirakawa for their invaluable comments and advice and to Hideo Yamazaki, Kazuo Kamura, and Xiao Jule for providing samples of surface sediment. Jack T. Trevors is thanked for his editorial handling of the manuscript. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (no. 16340157 to S Yoshikawa, no. 07 J10902 to A Murakami).
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Momose, A., Inoue, J., Murakami-Kitase, A. et al. Characteristic Differences in the Chemical Composition of Spheroidal Carbonaceous Particles in Japanese and Chinese Cities. Water Air Soil Pollut 223, 4761–4767 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-012-1232-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-012-1232-3