Source Identifications of Airborne Fine Particles Using Positive Matrix Factorization and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Positive Matrix Factorization

Abstract

The widely used source apportionment model, positive matrix factorization (PMF2), has been applied to various air pollution data. Recently, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed EPA positive matrix factorization (PMF), a version of PMF that will be freely distributed by EPA. The objectives of this study were to conduct source apportionment studies for particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM_2.5) speciation data using PMF2 and EPA PMF (version 1.1) and to compare identified sources between the two models. In the present study, ambient PM_2.5compositional datasets of 24-hr integrated samples collected at EPA Speciation Trends Network monitoring sites in Chicago, IL, and Portland, OR, were analyzed. Both PMF2 and EPA PMF extracted eight sources for the Chicago data and 10 sources for the Portland data. The model-resolved source profiles were similar between two models for both datasets. However, in several sources, the average contributions did not agree well and the time series contributions were not highly correlated. The differences between PMF2 and EPA PMF solutions were caused by the different least-square algorithm and the different nonnegativity constraints. Most of the average source contributions resolved by both models were within 5–95% uncertainty provided by EPA PMF, indicating that the sources resolved by both models were reproducible.