Atmospheric aerosol inorganic and organic nitrogen quantification method and system

An atmospheric aerosol inorganic and organic nitrogen quantification system, comprising:

• an inlet for intaking atmospheric air samples;
• a denuder for reducing positive artifacts caused by the adsorption of gas-phase compounds of the atmospheric air samples to obtain an aerosol product;
• tandem aerosol sample heating ovens having a front oven for thermally evolving the aerosol product by a stepwise temperature heating program to obtain a gaseous product mixture and a back oven for oxidizing the gaseous product mixture with an oxygen-containing carrier gas to generate oxidized gaseous products, wherein the stepwise temperature program is a heating program with a plurality of progressive heating temperatures;
• a carbon detector for performing carbon measurement of a portion of the oxidized gaseous products;
• a NOx analyzer having a NO convertor for converting another portion of the oxidized gaseous products into an NO product;
• a needle valve for adjusting a flow rate of the oxidized gaseous products subjected to the NOx analyzer;
• an ozonator for generating ozone;
• a reaction chamber for reacting the NO product with the ozone to produce excited NO2* molecules which emit fluorescence light for quantification;
• and
• a fluorescence quantification module for evaluating and quantifying the fluorescence light to obtain a fluorescence intensity and correlating the fluorescence intensity to a concentration of the excited NO2* molecules;
• wherein the tandem aerosol sample heating ovens are connected to the carbon detector, the tandem aerosol sample heating ovens are also connected to the NOx analyzer through the needle valve;
• and
• wherein the reaction chamber is connected to the ozonator, the NO convertor and the fluorescence quantification module.