Weekly cycle of magnetic characteristics of the daily PM2.5 and PM2.5–10 in Beijing, China

In recent years, Beijing has been shown to suffer one of the most serious air pollution problems of any major world city. The concentrations of particulate matter (PM) pollutants, PM2.5–10 and PM2.5, are commonly used as air pollution indexes. We conducted a detailed environmental magnetism study to investigate possible sources of air pollution in Beijing, China, using 283 pairs of the PM2.5 and PM2.5–10 samples collected daily from July 2010 to June 2011. Rock magnetic measurements, including magnetic susceptibility, anhysteretic remanent magnetization, isothermal remanent magnetization, saturation isothermal remanent magnetization, hysteresis loops, first-order reversal curves (FORCs), and thermomagnetism, indicate that the main magnetic mineral is low-coercivity pseudo-single domain (PSD) magnetite. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analyses on the PM indicate that the major magnetic phase is coarse-grained magnetite, which is most likely from automobile exhausts and braking system debris. Magnetic parameters of PM2.5 and PM2.5–10 show significant seasonal patterns that may be attributed to domestic heating enhancing magnetization of the PM during late autumn to early spring. Power spectral analyses and box–whisker plots indicate that the magnetic parameters have strong weekly variations that may be due to traffic emissions. These results indicate that magnetic parameters can be used as efficient proxies for monitoring Beijingʹs air pollution, and that the atmospheric environment may be improved by controlling vehicle emissions.