Assessment of the determination of water-soluble ionic composition of atmospheric aerosols from the analysis of crossed halves of filters

The water-soluble ionic composition of atmospheric aerosols is a key parameter for estimating its anthropogenic or natural origin. This evaluation depends on the reliability of the performed measurements. The differential approach for the evaluation of the measurement uncertainty was used for estimating, separately, the uncertainty associated with the extraction step, by difference from the observed intermediate precision and the combination of all the other uncertainty components affecting the estimated intermediate precision. The intermediate precision was estimated from the difference of results of the analysis, in different days, of several pairs of filters resulting from cross-changing of their halves. The precision associated with the symmetry of filters division, affecting the homogeneity of studied combined pairs of filters, was subtracted from the observed dispersion of results. The resulting detailed model of measurement performance allowed defining strategies for cost of analysis or magnitude of measurement uncertainty reduction. Measurements are fit for the analysis of urban aerosols since the expanded relative measurement uncertainty is smaller than a target value of 30 %.