Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 10 5 2010 10.5194/acp-10-2257-2010 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2257/2010/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2257/2010/acp-10-2257-2010.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2257/2010/acp-10-2257-2010.pdf 2257 2267 2010-03-03 Aerosol analysis using a Thermal-Desorption Proton-Transfer-Reaction Mass Spectrometer (TD-PTR-MS): a new approach to study processing of organic aerosols R. Holzinger r.holzinger@uu.nl J. Williams F. Herrmann J. Lelieveld N. M. Donahue T. Röckmann Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213, USA We present a novel analytical approach to measure the chemical composition of organic aerosol. The new instrument combines proton-transfer-reaction mass-spectrometry (PTR-MS) with a collection-thermal-desorption aerosol sampling technique. For secondary organic aerosol produced from the reaction of ozone with isoprenoids in a laboratory reactor, the TD-PTR-MS instrument detected typically 80% of the mass that was measured with a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). The first field deployment of the instrument was the EUCAARI-IOP campaign at the CESAR tall tower site in the Netherlands. For masses with low background values (~30% of all masses) the detection limit of aerosol compounds was below 0.2 ng/m³ which corresponds to a sampled compound mass of 35 pg. Comparison of thermograms from ambient samples and from chamber-derived secondary organic aerosol shows that, in general, organic compounds from ambient aerosol samples desorb at much higher temperatures than chamber samples. 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