Stable iron isotopic composition of atmospheric aerosols: an overview

Yuantao Wang, Libin Wu, Wei Hu, Weijun Li, Zongbo Shi, Roy M. Harrison, Pingqing Fu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

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Abstract

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) has a significant impact on both the natural environment and human health. Iron is one of the most abundant elements in the earth’s crust, playing an important role in geochemical processes, and is also an important trace component in atmospheric PM. In recent years, with the rapid development of non-traditional (metal) stable isotope technologies, new solutions and methods for the source apportionments of heavy metal elements have been put forward. Stable iron isotope analysis has become an effective tool to trace iron in atmospheric particles. This review paper briefly summarizes the recent progress of atmospheric iron isotope geochemistry. We show that some of the major natural and anthropogenic PM sources have different iron isotopic compositions. A Bayesian isotopic mixing model MixSIAR was used to quantitatively re-evaluate the contributions of different sources to iron in both urban and marine aerosols based on iron isotopic data in the literature. The results highlight the value of stable iron isotope analyses as an effective tool in the source apportionment of atmospheric aerosols.

Original languageEnglish
Article number75
Number of pages13
Journalnpj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Volume5
Issue number1
Early online date11 Oct 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42130513, 41905110, and 41961130384), and the Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship (Grant No. NAF\R1\191220).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Atmospheric Science

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