Spatially Resolved Source Apportionment of Industrial VOCs Using a Mobile Monitoring Platform

Industrial emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) directly impact air quality downwind facilities and contribute to regional ozone secondary aerosol production. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) is often used apportion VOCs their respective sources using measurement data collected at fixed sites, for example monitoring stations. Here, we apply PMF analysis high time-resolution VOC both while stationary moving a mobile platform. The periods facilitated the extraction representative industrial source profiles were critical spatial identification hotspots. Data over five days in heavily industrialized region southwestern Ontario containing several refineries, petrochemical production chemical waste disposal facility. Factors associated with petroleum, rubber identified ambient mixing ratios selected aromatic, unsaturated oxygenated apportioned local background sources. Fugitive benzene, highly localized predominantly storage, found be dominant contributor benzene measured mobile. Toluene substituted aromatics refining traffic, methyl ethyl ketone was linked handling. approach described here facilitates apportionment temporal resolution. This information can identify problematic locations inform emission abatement strategies.