Reviewer #:

REVIEW ON MANUSCRIPT

Comparison and implications of the carbonaceous fractions under different

environments in polluted central plains in China: Insight from the

lockdown of COVID-19 outbreak

GENERAL COMMENTS:

The objective of the paper is to study the effect of partial lockdown on the

atmospheric aerosol chemistry, enhanced secondary inorganic aerosol

production, and its effect on the chemical characterization of aerosol. I found

that the paper is useful for the journal although the authors used (traditional)

analysis methods, for example, you didn't use MS and SMPS for the

measurement and analysis of the composition of particles the same for gases.

Furthermore, the discussion of results needs to be improved (see detailed

comments). In addition, although the manuscript is mainly well written, it

contains awkward sentences. Therefore, the English language needs to be

improved. The followings are few observations, comments and suggestions that

demand clarifications, improvements and modifications/revisions:

Major comments
-The air quality in Cairo is poor according to Plume Labs I suggest you

report air pollution (main pollutants; its concentrations and sources) in

Cairo in the introduction, like a small overview.

-Add more discussion using similar studies to prove your findings and
reinforced your discussion section

Minor comments

- Changing in concentrations of air pollutants can change atmospheric chemistry regimes, and
therefore changing the secondary PM production rates owing to increase the oxidants
concentrations under the effect of reduced emissions (Shah et al., 2020; Nault et al., 2018;
Shah et al., 2018; Laughner and Cohen, 2019; Womack et al., 2019)

To the best of our knowledge very little work have gone deeper on atmospheric aerosol
chemistry

2.2.Sampling and analysis of primary gaseous air pollutants

Ambient NO2 gas was collected by bubbling air, at a flow rate of 0.5 L/min, through a
sodium hydroxide–sodium arsenite solution to produce a stable sodium nitrite solution
according to Harrison and Perry (1986)

Two SKC IMPACT samplers (SKC Inc. USA), designed for the collection of PM2.5 in
ambient air at a flow rate of 10 L/min, were used for sampling of PM2.5. Cite this study that
used SKC as a method for PM analysis why don't you have used SMPS for PM analysis
as all other studies

-…. the concentration of PM2.5 in air was calculated from the dust mass on filter and volume
of air (m3) during the sampling time. Give some references to those who used this analysis
method

-Aerosol loaded on the quartz filters of the first set of PM2.5 samples was used for the
elemental measurement using a digestion method.

-Moreover, all chemical used for sampling digestion and analysis were obtained from from
Merck Company.

- The average wind speeds were 10.1 m/h in pre-COVID, 10.4 m/h in COVID partial
lockdown and 8. 8 m/h in post-COVID.
- The sharp decrease of traffic volume during the COVID partial lockdown period led to a
sharp reduction in the concentration levels of PM2.5 and SO2 and NO2.

Add these sentences

However some studies report an increase in secondary air pollution like PM2.5 in china ‘ref’ and
French ‘ref’ and Morocco in south Africa ‘ref’. Because photochemistry can be a significant
contributor to pM formation especially under high ozone levels because O3 can be converted to OH
radicals in the atmosphere in the presence of humidity; OH radicals react with VOC and BVOC and
lead to the formation of secondary aerosols which represent a significant fraction of PM2.5ref

-Enrichment factors (EFs) calculation is a common way used to assess the degree of the
anthropogenic influence on the composition and the degree of contamination…………… 10
refer to moderate enrichment, whereas EFs values higher than 10 show severe enrichment
(Chen et al., 2007).

-This result indicates that the elements in PM2.5 were not only derived from local sources but
also from the transportation of aerosol-bound elements that emitted from anthropogenic
sources lied in the surrounding cities of the study area. How can you have this conclusion
from the results presented above?

3.2.2. Enrichment factor analysis : In this section, you must report some results found by
similar studies in the other studies area and do some comparison and discussion

The fraction of elements in PM2.5 arising from the non-crustal sources [(Cx)*] can be
estimated by the following equation (Mason, 1966)

Lines 386-391 The fraction of elements in PM2.5 arising from the non-crustal sources
[(Cx)*] can be estimated by the….

Lines 392-399 add some discussion in this sub-section and report some conclusions
found in previous studies

The relatively higher levels of crustal–mineral species in pre- and post-COVID than in
COVID partial lockdown period resulted from the effect of local and regional man-made
activities on the production of crustal–mineral dust, like re-suspension of road dust during
traffic flow during pre- and post-COVID

High values of this ratio reveal that the predominance of vehicular traffic source is higher
than stationary source of this pollutants. In the present study, the mean NO3-/SO42- ratios in
PM2.5 during pre-COVID, COVID partial …………higher traffic density on these times.
Added more discussion using similar studies

These results indicate that both NH3 gas and Ca2+ play an important role in the
neutralization of sulfate and (NH4)2SO4 and/or NH4HSO4 and CaSO4 are forms existent in
the PM2.5; this is consistent with previously studied (Tang et al., 2004; Tang et al., 2017;
Wang et al., 2017)
This will help us for understanding the acidity of atmospheric PM and the ways for limitation
it, since the acidity is an important key that affecting on the hygroscopic growth, toxicity

PM is in acidic status when the ratio of the sum of the microequivalents concentration of
anions (A) to cations (C) (∑A/∑C) higher than one, and increasing in value of ∑A/∑C ratio
suggests an increase in particle acidity