<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" specific-use="SMUR" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2025-5655</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Widespread occurrence of large molecular methylsiloxanes in ambient aerosols</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yao</surname>
<given-names>Peng</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1265-7849</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Holzinger</surname>
<given-names>Rupert</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1902-1824</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Oyama</surname>
<given-names>Beatriz Sayuri</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Masalaite</surname>
<given-names>Agne</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Paul</surname>
<given-names>Dipayan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ni</surname>
<given-names>Haiyan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Noto</surname>
<given-names>Hanne</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8032-0191</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Materić</surname>
<given-names>Dušan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6454-3456</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Andrade</surname>
<given-names>Maria de Fátima</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5351-8311</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Huang</surname>
<given-names>Ru-Jin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dusek</surname>
<given-names>Ulrike</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (ESRIG), University of  Groningen, Groningen, 9747AG, the Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, IMAU, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, the  Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>State Research Institute Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Vilnius, LT-02300, Lithuania</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Center for Excellence in Quaternary Science and Global Change,  Key Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry &amp; Physics, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an  710061, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Department of Analytical Chemistry, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Permoserstrasse 15, 04318  Leipzig, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>19</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2025</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2025</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>21</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2025 Peng Yao et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2025</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5655/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5655/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5655/egusphere-2025-5655.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5655/egusphere-2025-5655.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Synthetic pollutants have emerged as a widespread environmental concern. Recently, large molecular methylsiloxanes were identified in traffic emissions. Here, we show that large molecular methylsiloxanes are widely present in atmospheric particulate matter across diverse environments, including urban, coastal, rural, and forest sites in the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Brazil. Overall, methylsiloxanes of varying molecular sizes account for approximately 2.0 %&amp;ndash;4.3 % of the non-refractory organic aerosol mass detected by thermal desorption proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (TD-PTR-MS) analysis. Thermal desorption profiles indicate that over half of the detected methylsiloxanes originate from the depolymerization of large molecular methylsiloxanes, primarily associated with traffic emissions, while the remainder likely arise from the gas-to-particle conversion of volatile methylsiloxanes. Large molecular methylsiloxanes show a distinct correlation with long-chain hydrocarbons characteristic of engine lubricants, suggesting a lubricant-related source. Notably, the mass fraction of methylsiloxanes in organic aerosols does not decrease significantly during atmospheric transport and dilution, and a substantial fraction persists as large molecular methylsiloxanes. This persistence underscores their chemical stability, in contrast to the co-emitted lubricant hydrocarbons that undergo atmospheric oxidation. The substantial mass fraction of methylsiloxanes in particulate matter highlights their role as one of the most concentrated categories of synthetic compounds in the atmosphere, raising concerns about their potential, yet poorly understood, effects on human health and the climate.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="21"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek</funding-source>
<award-id>820.01.001</award-id>
<award-id>834.08.002</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo</funding-source>
<award-id>2011/17754-2</award-id>
<award-id>2012/21456-0</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs3">
<funding-source>China Scholarship Council</funding-source>
<award-id>201806320346</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>