Source apportionment of PM2.5 in Seoul, South Korea and Beijing, China using dispersion normalized PMF

East Asian countries experience severe air pollution owing to their rapid development and urbanization induced by substantial economic activities. South Korea and China are among the most polluted East Asian countries with high mass concentrations of PM2.5. Although the occurrence of transboundary air pollution among neighboring countries has been recognized for a long time, studies involving simultaneous ground-based PM2.5 monitoring and source apportionment in South Korea and China have not been conducted to date. This study performed simultaneous daily ground-based monitoring of PM2.5 in Seoul and Beijing from January to December 2019. The mass concentrations of PM2.5 and its major chemical components were analyzed simultaneously during 2019. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) as well as dispersion normalized PMF (DN-PMF) were utilized for the source apportionment of ambient PM2.5 at…