To better understand the characteristics and seasonality of water-soluble and water-insoluble but soluble in methanol brown carbon (WSBrC and MS(WI)BrC, respectively) in the Tianjin region, North China, we collected fine aerosols (PM2.5) at an urban location (Nankai District, ND; n = 121) in Tianjin from 5 July 2018 to 4 July 2019. We measured both the excitation-emission matrices (EEM) spectra and ultraviolet-visible (UV–Vis) absorption spectra of the WSBrC and MS(WI)BrC in 1×1 cm quartz cuvettes were recorded using a three-dimensional fluorescence spectrometer (Aqualog, Horiba Scientific). The obtained data sets are presented herewith.

This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Plan with Grant-in-aid number 2017YFC0212700 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41775120), China. The author also thanks to Mr. Yunting Xiao's help for writing a code to calculate the SFE.