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List of Abstracts 204Contact: pieter.vanzyl@nwu.ac.zaCertain aspects of air quality in developed countries have shown vast improvements during the last couple ofdecades. In contrast, developing countries have historically rather placed emphasis on economic growth,with the acceptance of certain environmental and health risks.On the African continent South Africa (SA) plays a leading role in many aspects and is regarded as theindustrial and economic hub of southern Africa. Within a global air quality perspective SA is also relativelyimportant, due to the fact that i) biomass burning plumes from southern Africa affects Australia and SouthAmerica, ii) an anthropogenic NO2 hotspot, over the South African Highveld area, is clearly visible formsatellite observations, iii) NO2 transport from this region has been tracked as far as Australia and iv) SA isregarded as one of the top ten sulfur emitting countries in the world.Considering the importance of SA within the continent and indeed within the global perspective, thequestion should therefore be asked: Where is air quality in South African heading?In this paper a 16 year data series from a regional background station is discussed in order to make someconclusions with regard to past air quality trends and the possible future direction that air quality in SAmight be heading.P-Observations 2.76 ID:4193 10:30Chemical composition of PM2.5 and PM10 collected in urban and biomass burning sites of São PauloState, Brazil.Perola Vasconcellos 1 , Davi Souza 2 , Risto Hillamo 3 , Minna Aurela 3 , Karri Saarnio 3 , Kimmo Teinila 31 Institute of Chemistry - University of São Paulo2 National Institute of Nuclear Research3 Finnish Institute of meteorologyContact: perola@iq.usp.brAerosol particles affect the climate both directly by scattering and absorbing incoming solar radiation andindirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. On the global scale, biomass burning represents animportant source of atmospheric aerosols and greenhouse gases, and has demonstrated positive and negativeeffects on climate. The chemical composition of aerosol is variable, thus it is important the knowledge anddetermination of molecular markers to identification emission of specific sources. In order to characterizethe aerosol from urban (August 2008 and March-April 2009) and biomass burning (November 2008) in SãoPaulo State, Brazil, particulate matter samples were collected (PM2.5 and PM10). In this work weredetermined PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations, inorganic ions, organic acids and monosaccharide anhydridesas levoglucosan, galactosan e manosan. PM2.5 mass concentrations in 2008 were from 17 to 83 µg m-3 atSPA (av. 47 µg m-3 ) and 6 to 26 µg m-3 in PRB (av. 18 µg m-3), and from 4 to 42 µg m-3 in 2009 at SPA(av. 13 µg m-3). The PM10 mass concentration range in 2008 is 35 to 98 µg m-3 at SPA (av. 64 µg m-3) and27 to 43 µg m-3 (av. 35.2 µg m-3) at PRB. The differences can be explained considering seasonalinfluences, meteorological condition, and local emission sources of the aerosol. Sulphate, nitrate,ammonium, elementar carbon (EC) and particulate organic material (POM) are major components in massbalance of the total PM2.5 and PM10. On average 68% of PM10 was made up of fine particles at SPA08 siteand 46% at PRB08 site. At SPA08 sulfate, potassium, ammonium, nitrate, fosfate concentrations werehigher in PM2.5 than in PM2.5-10. Converselly at PRB08 site sodium and magnesium concentrations werehigher in PM2.5-10 than in PM2.5.iCACGP-IGAC 2010 14 July, 2010