Atmospheric Environment 38 (2004) 2545–2560 Patterns and sources of particle-phase aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urban and rural sites of western Greece Maria Kalaitzoglou, Eleni Terzi, Constantini Samara* Environmental Pollution Control Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 541 24, Greece Received 24 October 2003; received in revised form 14 January 2004; accepted 21 January 2004 Abstract Particle-bound aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (AHs and PAHs, respectively) were determined in the ambient air of the Eordea basin, in western Greece, where intensive coal burning for power generation takes place. Thirteen PAHs, n-alkanes (C 14 –C 35 ), hopanes, and isoprenoid hydrocarbons (pristane and phytane) were determined in the total suspended particles collected from the atmosphere of four sites within the basin receiving potential impacts from various sources, such as fly ash, coal mining, automobile traffic, domestic heating, and agricultural or refuse burning. The same organic species were also determined in the fly ash generated in power stations, and in particulate emissions from open burning of biomass (dry corn leaves) and refuse burning. Organic particle sources were resolved using concentration diagnostic ratios and factor analysis (FA). A multivariate statistical receptor model (Absolute Principal Component Analysis, APCA) was finally employed to estimate the contribution of identified sources to the measured concentrations of organic pollutants. Four major sources for ambient PAHs and AHs were identified displaying variable contribution in different sites: (a) fossil fuel combustion, (b) biogenic emissions, (c) refuse burning, and (d) oil residues. Fuel combustion was the major source of ambient PAHs and an important source of n-alkanes in the range C 21 –C 28 . Oil residues were found to be the major source of low molecular weight n-alkanes (particularly the C 14 –C 16 ), and an important source of pristane, phytane and UCM. Biogenic sources were primarily responsible for the high molecular weight n-alkanes explaining almost the entire concentration levels of homologues >C 32 . Biomass burning was particularly important for the C 23 –C 26 n-alkanes. Despite the vicinity of certain sampling sites to power stations, coal fly ash was not identifiable as a source for ambient PAHs and AHs. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Atmospheric particulate matter; Fly ash; Hopanes; n-alkanes; Phytane; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; Power generation; Pristane 1. Introduction Ambient particulate matter is a mixture of organic and inorganic constituents formed by a large variety of mechanisms associated with both natural and anthro- pogenic sources. Carbonaceous species constitute a very important fraction of ambient aerosols ranging from around 20–80% (Chow et al., 1994; Zheng et al., 1997). This organic fraction is composed of a mixture of compounds including aliphatics, aromatics, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, acid and nitrates, whose nature is still scarcely known (Alves et al., 2000). Anthropogenic emissions include fossil fuel combustion in mobile and stationary sources (Rogge et al., 1993a; Mastral and Call ! en, 2000), biomass burning for agricultural pur- poses, and forest fires (Fang et al., 1999). Wind erosion of leaf epicuticular waxes, vegetation debris and micro- bial degradation are considered as the most important natural sources of organic compounds (Rogge et al., ARTICLE IN PRESS AE International – Europe *Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +30-2310-997-747. E-mail address: csamara@chem.auth.gr (C. Samara). 1352-2310/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.01.042