Esther Breuninger presents particle-resolved fingerprinting of brake wear particles at Goldschmidt 2026
Non-exhaust emissions from vehicles, particularly brake wear particles, are increasingly recognized as a dominant source of urban particulate pollution, yet accurate source attribution remains challenging. A new study conducted at EDGE, which was presented at the Goldschmidt Conference 2026, explores how single-particle mass spectrometry disentangles complex brake wear fingerprints in real world urban samples to improve source attribution.
In her talk at Goldschmidt, Esther Breuninger presents brake wear particles collected from in-use tire rims across Vienna, representing emissions accumulated during everyday driving rather than laboratory conditions. Using single-particle inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry, the team characterized the elemental composition of individual particles at high throughput. The analysis revealed that traditional bulk brake markers such as iron, copper, barium, and antimony rarely appear together in the same particle. Instead, pure iron particles dominate, with iron tin combinations forming the next most common association. Unsupervised clustering further separates brake related particles, carrying signatures of iron, copper, tin, and chromium, from populations influenced by environmental dust enriched in silicon and aluminium.
Goldschmidt is the leading international conference in geochemistry and related fields, bringing together researchers working on planetary processes, Earth system science, environmental geochemistry, and analytical innovation. Esther Breuninger’s presentation fits the conference’s broad focus on how geochemical methods can address pressing environmental questions, especially by improving the tracing of non-exhaust traffic emissions in cities.
The study presented was carried out by Esther Breuninger, Madeleine Lomax-Vogt, Frank von der Kammer and Thilo Hofmann at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS), University of Vienna.
CeMESS/Thilo Hofmann