Black carbon (BC) plays an important role in air quality and climate change,which is closely associated with its mixing state and chemical compositions.In this work the mixing state of BC-containing single particles was investigated to explore the evolution process of ambi-ent BC particles using a single particle aerosol mass spectrometer (SPAMS) in March 2018 in Zhengzhou,China.The BC-containing particles accounted for 61.4% of total detected am-bient single particles and were classified into five types including BC-nitrate (BC-N,52.3%)as the most abundant species,followed by BC-nitrate-sulfate (BC-NS,22.4%),BCOC (16.8%),BC-fresh (BC-F,4.5%) and BC-sulfate particles (BC-S,4.0%).With enhancement of the ambi-ent nitrate concentration,the relative peak area (RPA) of nitrate in BC-N and BC-NS particles both increased,yet only the number fraction (Nf) of BC-N particles increased while the Nf of BC-NS particles decreased,suggesting that the enhanced mixing state of BC with nitrate was mainly due to the increase in the ambient nitrate mass concentration.In addition,the Nf of BC-N decreased from 65.3% to 28.4% as the absorbing (A)ngstr(o)m exponents (AAE) of eBC increased from 0.75 to 1.45,which indicated the reduction of light absorption ability of aged BC particles with the enhanced formation of BC-N particles.The results of this work indicated a change in the mixing state of BC particles due to the dominance of nitrate in PM2.5,which also influenced the optical properties of aged BC particles.