| 12 Nov 2025
Real‑Time Water‑Soluble Iron Speciation in Ambient Aerosols at Neutral and Slightly Acidic pH
Abstract. We present the first online instrument for the speciation of water‑soluble iron in ambient aerosols, enabling simultaneous quantification of Fe(II) (ws‑Fe(II)) and total water‑soluble Fe (total ws‑Fe). The system combines flow injection analysis with spectrophotometric detection of the Fe(II)–ferrozine complex using a liquid waveguide capillary cell (LWCC) for sensitive detection. The setup was tested with two different aerosol sampling units during field campaigns in Berlin. In summer 2024, the Metrohm AeRosol Sampler (MARS) operated at pH 6.5, while in winter 2025 a particle‑into‑liquid sampler (PILS) was applied at pH 4.5 to mimic acidic cloud water conditions. Limits of quantification (LOQ) for Fe(II) determination were 1.6 ng m⁻³ and 1.0 ng m⁻³ for the MARS‑FIA and PILS‑FIA setups, respectively, with ambient ws‑Fe concentrations ranging from below LOQ to 47 ng m⁻³. Both setups yielded robust online measurements; however, the PILS‑FIA working at pH 4.5 underestimated ws‑Fe compared to filter sampling and extraction. This discrepancy can be attributed to the shorter extraction time in the PILS system, highlighting the influence of extraction duration on the measured iron concentration. Since soluble iron drives important tropospheric aqueous-phase reactions like hydroxyl radical formation through Fenton chemistry, the speciation data provided by the presented setup could improve model representations of atmospheric iron processes.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Aerosol Research.
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