The contribution of emissions from agricultural facilities is rapidly becoming a major concern for local and regional air
quality. Characterization of particle properties such as physical size distribution and chemical composition can be valuable
in understanding the processes contributing to emissions and ultimate fate of particulate matter from agricultural facilities.
A measurement campaign was conducted at an Iowa, deep-pit, three-barn swine finishing facility to characterize near-source
ambient particulate matter. Size-specific mass concentrations were determined using minivol samplers, with additional size
distribution information obtain using optical particle counters. Particulate composition was determined via ion chromatographic
analysis of the collected filters. A thermal-CO
2 elemental/organic carbon analyzer measured particulate carbon. The chemical composition and size distribution of sub-micron
particles were determined via real-time aerosol mass spectrometry. Primary particulate was not found to be a major emission
from the examined facility, with filter-based impactor samples showing average near-source increases (~15–50 m) in ambient
PM
10 of 5.8 ± 2.9 μg m
−3 above background levels. PM
2.5 also showed contribution attributable to the facility (1.7 ± 1.1 μg m
−3). Optical particle counter analysis of the numerical size distributions showed bimodal distributions for both the upwind
and downwind conditions, with maximums around 2.5 μm and below the minimum quantified diameter of 0.3 μm. The distributions
showed increased numbers of coarse particles (PM
10) during periods when wind transport came from the barns, but the differences were not statistically significant at the 95%
confidence level. The PM
10 aerosols showed statistically increased concentrations of sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, calcium, organic carbon, and elemental
carbon when the samplers were downwind from the pig barns. Organic carbon was the major constituent of the barn-impacted particulate
matter in both sub-micron (54%) and coarse size (20%) ranges. The AMS PM
1 chemical speciation showed similar species increases, with the exception of and Ca
+2, the latter not quantified by the AMS.
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