Identification of sources of atmospheric particles (<10μm) in an urban environment by multi-isotopic tracing (C, N, Sr and Pb)

This study proposes to combine several tracers (carbon, nitrogen, strontium and lead isotopes) to better constrain the origin of particulate pollutants in urban areas (PM10 particulates size). A non-equivocal discrimination is obtained for different PM10 source types. δ13C, 87Sr/86Sr and lead isotope ratios allow the direct tracing of PM10 origin and sometimes to find a different origin for the organic and inorganic phases. δ15N measurements supply an additional information about the origin of NOx during their phase transformation in post-combustion phenomena. Short paper. (J.S.)