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<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-2026-5314</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Phase-resolved molecular signatures associated with black carbon across biomass fuels and ignition temperatures</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Peng</surname>
<given-names>Xiaocong</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Song</surname>
<given-names>Wei</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Guohua</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6153-0748</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lin</surname>
<given-names>Qinhao</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>Cheng</surname>
<given-names>Jianlin</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>Li</surname>
<given-names>Yang</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>Huang</surname>
<given-names>Xinru</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>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Baoyi</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>Song</surname>
<given-names>Jianzhong</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4467-4483</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Yingjun</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4784-8282</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Gan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Peng</surname>
<given-names>Ping’an</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Xinming</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1982-0928</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bi</surname>
<given-names>Xinhui</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3929-5470</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Environmental Technology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of  Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou 510640, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Protection and Resources Utilization, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS, Guangzhou 510640, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Environmental Pollution and Control, Guangzhou Institute of  Geochemistry, CAS, Guangzhou 510640, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Institute of Environmental Health and Pollution Control,  Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Shanghai Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Particle Pollution and Prevention, Department of Environmental Science  and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>These authors contributed equally to this work.</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>28</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>19</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Xiaocong Peng et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</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/2026/egusphere-2026-5314/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5314/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5314/egusphere-2026-5314.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5314/egusphere-2026-5314.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Biomass combustion is an important source of black carbon (BC), yet the phase-resolved molecular patterns accompanying black-carbon evolution remain poorly constrained. In particular, detectable molecular signal abundance may not track black-carbon concentration across combustion conditions. Here, we investigated how detectable molecular profiles covary with BC by combining real-time measurements from a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-TOF-MS), for both gas-phase and particle-associated organics, with simultaneous aethalometer (AE-33) BC readings. Experiments were conducted across two biomass fuels (wheat straw and poplar wood) and three ignition temperatures (300, 500, and 700 &amp;deg;C). More than 200 retained nominal-m/z features were classified, and a prespecified block-level screen selected four BC-associated marker families, including furan-ring fragments, oxygenated aromatic, single-ring aromatic (SRA), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), represented by 12 molecular markers. Particle-associated family signals show stronger within-event associations with BC (median block-level Spearman &amp;rho; = 0.86&amp;ndash;0.92) than corresponding gas-phase signals. Particle-phase molecular profiles improve out-of-experiment BC prediction, increasing R&amp;sup2; from 0.29 to 0.56 beyond a baseline model containing fuel, ignition temperature, and modified combustion efficiency. However, increasing ignition temperature enhanced BC production without a proportional increase in detectable BC-linked marker abundance, indicating a temperature-driven shift from precursor accumulation toward a more conversion-dominated regime. The molecular changes accompanying BC enhancement were fuel-specific, reflecting distinct marker compositions. These findings suggest that biomass BC formation is influenced not simply by detectable marker signal, but by temperature-dependent transformation of fuel-specific molecular pools, providing new constraints for interpreting molecular precursors in biomass-derived BC formation.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="19"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42192514</award-id>
<award-id>42577110</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Guangdong Provincial Applied Science and Technology Research and Development Program</funding-source>
<award-id>2023B0303000007</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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