scholarly journals Chemical aging of <i>m</i>-xylene secondary organic aerosol: laboratory chamber study

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Loza ◽  
P. S. Chhabra ◽  
L. D. Yee ◽  
J. S. Craven ◽  
R. C. Flagan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Particle Composition ◽  
Chemical Aging ◽  
Size Dependent ◽  
Volatile Products ◽  
Fragmentation Chemistry ◽  
Wall Loss

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) can reside in the atmosphere for a week or more. While its initial formation from the gas-phase oxidation of volatile organic compounds tends to take place in the first few hours after emission, SOA can continue to evolve chemically over its atmospheric lifetime. Simulating this chemical aging over an extended time in the laboratory has proven to be challenging. We present here a procedure for studying SOA aging in laboratory chambers that is applied to achieve 36 h of oxidation. The formation and evolution of SOA from the photooxidation of m-xylene under low-NOx conditions and in the presence of either neutral or acidic seed particles is studied. In SOA aging, increasing molecular functionalization leads to less volatile products and an increase in SOA mass, whereas gas- or particle-phase fragmentation chemistry results in more volatile products and a loss of SOA. The challenge is to discern from measured chamber variables the extent to which these processes are important for a given SOA system. In the experiments conducted, m-xylene SOA mass, calculated under the assumption of size-invariant particle composition, increased over the initial 12–13 h of photooxidation and decreased beyond that time, suggesting the existence of fragmentation chemistry. The oxidation of the SOA, as manifested in the O:C elemental ratio and fraction of organic ion detected at m/z 44 measured by the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer, increased continuously starting after 5 h of irradiation until the 36 h termination. This behavior is consistent with an initial period in which, as the mass of SOA increases, products of higher volatility partition to the aerosol phase, followed by an aging period in which gas- and particle-phase reaction products become increasingly more oxidized. When irradiation is stopped 12.4 h into one experiment, and OH generation ceases, minimal loss of SOA is observed, indicating that the loss of SOA is either light- or OH-induced. Chemical ionization mass spectrometry measurements of low-volatility m-xylene oxidation products exhibit behavior indicative of continuous photooxidation chemistry. A condensed chemical mechanism of m-xylene oxidation under low-NOx conditions is capable of reproducing the general behavior of gas-phase evolution observed here. Moreover, order of magnitude analysis of the mechanism suggests that gas-phase OH reaction of low volatility SOA precursors is the dominant pathway of aging in the m-xylene system although OH reaction with particle surfaces cannot be ruled out. Finally, the effect of size-dependent particle composition and size-dependent particle wall loss rates on different particle wall loss correction methods is discussed.

scholarly journals Chemical aging of <i>m</i>-xylene secondary organic aerosol: laboratory chamber study

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 24969-25010 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Loza ◽  
P. S. Chhabra ◽  
L. D. Yee ◽  
J. S. Craven ◽  
R. C. Flagan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Chemical Mechanism ◽  
Ionization Mass ◽  
Phase Reaction ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Chemical Aging ◽  
Volatile Products ◽  
Fragmentation Chemistry

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) can reside in the atmosphere for a week or more. While its initial formation from the gas-phase oxidation of volatile organic compounds tends to take place in the first few hours after emission, SOA can continue to evolve chemically over its atmospheric lifetime. Simulating this chemical aging over an extended time in the laboratory has proven to be challenging. We present here a procedure for studying SOA aging in laboratory chambers that is applied to achieve 36 h of oxidation. The formation and evolution of SOA from the photooxidation of m-xylene under low-NOx conditions and in the presence of either neutral or acidic seed particles is studied. In SOA aging, increasing molecular functionalization leads to less volatile products and an increase in SOA mass, whereas gas-phase or particle-phase fragmentation chemistry results in more volatile products and a loss of SOA. The challenge is to discern from measured chamber variables the extent to which these processes are important for a given SOA system. In the experiments conducted, m-xylene SOA mass increased over the initial 12-h of photooxidation and decreased beyond that time. The oxidation of the SOA, as manifested in the O:C elemental ratio and fraction of organic ion detected at m/z 44 measured by the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer, decreased during the first 5 h of reaction, reached a minimum, and then increased continuously until the 36 h termination. This behavior is consistent with an initial period in which, as the mass of SOA increases, products of higher volatility partition to the aerosol phase, followed by an aging period in which gas- and particle-phase reaction products become increasingly more oxidized. After about 12–13 h, the SOA mass reaches a maximum and decreases, suggesting the existence of fragmentation chemistry. When irradiation is stopped 12.4 h into one experiment, and OH generation ceases, no loss of SOA is observed, indicating that the loss of SOA is either light- or OH-induced. Chemical ionization mass spectrometry measurements of low-volatility m-xylene oxidation products exhibit behavior indicative of continuous photooxidation chemistry. A condensed chemical mechanism of m-xylene oxidation under low-NOx conditions is capable of reproducing the general behavior of gas-phase evolution observed here. Moreover, order of magnitude analysis of the mechanism suggests that gas-phase OH reaction of low volatility SOA precursors is the dominant pathway of aging in the m-xylene system although OH reaction with particle surfaces cannot be ruled out.

scholarly journals Mapping gas-phase organic reactivity and concomitant secondary organic aerosol formation: chemometric dimension reduction techniques for the deconvolution of complex atmospheric data sets

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (14) ◽  
pp. 8077-8100 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. P. Wyche ◽  
P. S. Monks ◽  
K. L. Smallbone ◽  
J. F. Hamilton ◽  
M. R. Alfarra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase Composition ◽  
Dimension Reduction ◽  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Chemical Mechanism ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Aerosol Formation ◽  
Holistic View

Abstract. Highly non-linear dynamical systems, such as those found in atmospheric chemistry, necessitate hierarchical approaches to both experiment and modelling in order to ultimately identify and achieve fundamental process-understanding in the full open system. Atmospheric simulation chambers comprise an intermediate in complexity, between a classical laboratory experiment and the full, ambient system. As such, they can generate large volumes of difficult-to-interpret data. Here we describe and implement a chemometric dimension reduction methodology for the deconvolution and interpretation of complex gas- and particle-phase composition spectra. The methodology comprises principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and positive least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). These methods are, for the first time, applied to simultaneous gas- and particle-phase composition data obtained from a comprehensive series of environmental simulation chamber experiments focused on biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) photooxidation and associated secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. We primarily investigated the biogenic SOA precursors isoprene, α-pinene, limonene, myrcene, linalool and β-caryophyllene. The chemometric analysis is used to classify the oxidation systems and resultant SOA according to the controlling chemistry and the products formed. Results show that "model" biogenic oxidative systems can be successfully separated and classified according to their oxidation products. Furthermore, a holistic view of results obtained across both the gas- and particle-phases shows the different SOA formation chemistry, initiating in the gas-phase, proceeding to govern the differences between the various BVOC SOA compositions. The results obtained are used to describe the particle composition in the context of the oxidised gas-phase matrix. An extension of the technique, which incorporates into the statistical models data from anthropogenic (i.e. toluene) oxidation and "more realistic" plant mesocosm systems, demonstrates that such an ensemble of chemometric mapping has the potential to be used for the classification of more complex spectra of unknown origin. More specifically, the addition of mesocosm data from fig and birch tree experiments shows that isoprene and monoterpene emitting sources, respectively, can be mapped onto the statistical model structure and their positional vectors can provide insight into their biological sources and controlling oxidative chemistry. The potential to extend the methodology to the analysis of ambient air is discussed using results obtained from a zero-dimensional box model incorporating mechanistic data obtained from the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCMv3.2). Such an extension to analysing ambient air would prove a powerful asset in assisting with the identification of SOA sources and the elucidation of the underlying chemical mechanisms involved.

scholarly journals Secondary organic aerosol formation in biomass-burning plumes: theoretical analysis of lab studies and ambient plumes

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 5459-5475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qijing Bian ◽  
Shantanu H. Jathar ◽  
John K. Kodros ◽  
Kelley C. Barsanti ◽  
Lindsay E. Hatch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biomass Burning ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Smog Chamber ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Wall Losses ◽  
Wall Loss ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Mass Enhancement ◽  
Fire Conditions

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) has been shown to form in biomass-burning emissions in laboratory and field studies. However, there is significant variability among studies in mass enhancement, which could be due to differences in fuels, fire conditions, dilution, and/or limitations of laboratory experiments and observations. This study focuses on understanding processes affecting biomass-burning SOA formation in laboratory smog-chamber experiments and in ambient plumes. Vapor wall losses have been demonstrated to be an important factor that can suppress SOA formation in laboratory studies of traditional SOA precursors; however, impacts of vapor wall losses on biomass-burning SOA have not yet been investigated. We use an aerosol-microphysical model that includes representations of volatility and oxidation chemistry to estimate the influence of vapor wall loss on SOA formation observed in the FLAME III smog-chamber studies. Our simulations with base-case assumptions for chemistry and wall loss predict a mean OA mass enhancement (the ratio of final to initial OA mass, corrected for particle-phase wall losses) of 1.8 across all experiments when vapor wall losses are modeled, roughly matching the mean observed enhancement during FLAME III. The mean OA enhancement increases to over 3 when vapor wall losses are turned off, implying that vapor wall losses reduce the apparent SOA formation. We find that this decrease in the apparent SOA formation due to vapor wall losses is robust across the ranges of uncertainties in the key model assumptions for wall-loss and mass-transfer coefficients and chemical mechanisms.We then apply similar assumptions regarding SOA formation chemistry and physics to smoke emitted into the atmosphere. In ambient plumes, the plume dilution rate impacts the organic partitioning between the gas and particle phases, which may impact the potential for SOA to form as well as the rate of SOA formation. We add Gaussian dispersion to our aerosol-microphysical model to estimate how SOA formation may vary under different ambient-plume conditions (e.g., fire size, emission mass flux, atmospheric stability). Smoke from small fires, such as typical prescribed burns, dilutes rapidly, which drives evaporation of organic vapor from the particle phase, leading to more effective SOA formation. Emissions from large fires, such as intense wildfires, dilute slowly, suppressing OA evaporation and subsequent SOA formation in the near field. We also demonstrate that different approaches to the calculation of OA enhancement in ambient plumes can lead to different conclusions regarding SOA formation. OA mass enhancement ratios of around 1 calculated using an inert tracer, such as black carbon or CO, have traditionally been interpreted as exhibiting little or no SOA formation; however, we show that SOA formation may have greatly contributed to the mass in these plumes.In comparison of laboratory and plume results, the possible inconsistency of OA enhancement between them could be in part attributed to the effect of chamber walls and plume dilution. Our results highlight that laboratory and field experiments that focus on the fuel and fire conditions also need to consider the effects of plume dilution or vapor losses to walls.

scholarly journals The effect of particle acidity on secondary organic aerosol formation from <i>α</i>-pinene photooxidation under atmospherically relevant conditions

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
pp. 13929-13944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuemei Han ◽  
Craig A. Stroud ◽  
John Liggio ◽  
Shao-Meng Li
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Oxidation Products ◽  
Strong Increase ◽  
Nitrate Content ◽  
Organic Nitrate ◽  
Organic Nitrates ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Aerosol Formation

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from photooxidation of α-pinene has been investigated in a photochemical reaction chamber under varied inorganic seed particle acidity levels at moderate relative humidity. The effect of particle acidity on SOA yield and chemical composition was examined under high- and low-NOx conditions. The SOA yield (4.2–7.6 %) increased nearly linearly with the increase in particle acidity under high-NOx conditions. In contrast, the SOA yield (28.6–36.3 %) was substantially higher under low-NOx conditions, but its dependency on particle acidity was insignificant. A relatively strong increase in SOA yield (up to 220 %) was observed in the first hour of α-pinene photooxidation under high-NOx conditions, suggesting that SOA formation was more effective for early α-pinene oxidation products in the presence of fresh acidic particles. The SOA yield decreased gradually with the increase in organic mass in the initial stage (approximately 0–1 h) under high-NOx conditions, which is likely due to the inaccessibility to the acidity over time with the coating of α-pinene SOA, assuming a slow particle-phase diffusion of organic molecules into the inorganic seeds. The formation of later-generation SOA was enhanced by particle acidity even under low-NOx conditions when introducing acidic seed particles after α-pinene photooxidation, suggesting a different acidity effect exists for α-pinene SOA derived from later oxidation stages. This effect could be important in the atmosphere under conditions where α-pinene oxidation products in the gas-phase originating in forested areas (with low NOx and SOx) are transported to regions abundant in acidic aerosols such as power plant plumes or urban regions. The fraction of oxygen-containing organic fragments (CxHyO1+ 33–35 % and CxHyO2+ 16–17 %) in the total organics and the O ∕ C ratio (0.52–0.56) of α-pinene SOA were lower under high-NOx conditions than those under low-NOx conditions (39–40, 17–19, and 0.61–0.64 %), suggesting that α-pinene SOA was less oxygenated in the studied high-NOx conditions. The fraction of nitrogen-containing organic fragments (CxHyNz+ and CxHyOzNp+) in the total organics was enhanced with the increases in particle acidity under high-NOx conditions, indicating that organic nitrates may be formed heterogeneously through a mechanism catalyzed by particle acidity or that acidic conditions facilitate the partitioning of gas-phase organic nitrates into particle phase. The results of this study suggest that inorganic acidity has a significant role to play in determining various organic aerosol chemical properties such as mass yields, oxidation state, and organic nitrate content. The acidity effect being further dependent on the timescale of SOA formation is also an important parameter in the modeling of SOA.

scholarly journals Particle Size Dependence of Biogenic Secondary Organic Aerosol Molecular Composition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peijun Tu ◽  
Murray V. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Particle Size ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Volume Ratio ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Phase Reaction ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Relative Signal Intensity ◽  
Volatile Products ◽  
Phase Chemistry ◽  
Limited Process

Abstract. Formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is initiated by the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the gas phase. Mass transfer to the particle phase is thought to occur primarily by a combination of condensation of non-volatile products and partitioning of semi-volatile products, though particle phase chemistry may also play a role if it transforms semi-volatile reactants into non-volatile products. In principle, changes in particle composition as a function of particle size allow the relative contributions of e.g. condensation (a surface-limited process) and particle phase reaction (a volume-limited process) to be distinguished. In this work, SOA was produced by β-pinene ozonolysis in a flow tube reactor. Aerosol exiting the reactor was size-selected with a differential mobility analyser, and individual particle sizes between 35 and 110 nm in diameter were characterized by on- and off- line mass spectrometry. Both the average oxygen-to-carbon (O / C) ratio and carbon oxidation state (OSc) were found to decrease with increasing particle size, while the relative signal intensity of oligomers increased with increasing particle size. These results are consistent with oligomer formation in the particle phase i.e. accretion reactions, which become more favoured as the surface-to-volume ratio of the particle decreases. Analysis of a series of polydisperse SOA samples showed similar dependencies: as the mass loading increased (and average surface-to-volume ratio decreased), the average O / C ratio and OSc decreased while the relative intensity of oligomer ions increased. The results illustrate the potential impact that particle phase chemistry can have on biogenic SOA formation and the particle size range where this chemistry becomes important.

scholarly journals Kinetic modeling of formation and evaporation of secondary organic aerosol from NO<sub>3</sub> oxidation of pure and mixed monoterpenes

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (24) ◽  
pp. 15513-15535
Author(s):  
Thomas Berkemeier ◽  
Masayuki Takeuchi ◽  
Gamze Eris ◽  
Nga L. Ng
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Model ◽  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Chemical Mechanism ◽  
Phase Reaction ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Environmental Chamber ◽  
Gas Phase Chemistry ◽  
Phase Chemistry

Abstract. Organic aerosol constitutes a major fraction of the global aerosol burden and is predominantly formed as secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Environmental chambers have been used extensively to study aerosol formation and evolution under controlled conditions similar to the atmosphere, but quantitative prediction of the outcome of these experiments is generally not achieved, which signifies our lack in understanding of these results and limits their portability to large-scale models. In general, kinetic models employing state-of-the-art explicit chemical mechanisms fail to describe the mass concentration and composition of SOA obtained from chamber experiments. Specifically, chemical reactions including the nitrate radical (NO3) are a source of major uncertainty for assessing the chemical and physical properties of oxidation products. Here, we introduce a kinetic model that treats gas-phase chemistry, gas–particle partitioning, particle-phase oligomerization, and chamber vapor wall loss and use it to describe the oxidation of the monoterpenes α-pinene and limonene with NO3. The model can reproduce aerosol mass and nitration degrees in experiments using either pure precursors or their mixtures and infers volatility distributions of products, branching ratios of reactive intermediates and particle-phase reaction rates. The gas-phase chemistry in the model is based on the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM) but trades speciation of single compounds for the overall ability of quantitatively describing SOA formation by using a lumped chemical mechanism. The complex branching into a multitude of individual products in MCM is replaced in this model with product volatility distributions and detailed peroxy (RO2) and alkoxy (RO) radical chemistry as well as amended by a particle-phase oligomerization scheme. The kinetic parameters obtained in this study are constrained by a set of SOA formation and evaporation experiments conducted in the Georgia Tech Environmental Chamber (GTEC) facility. For both precursors, we present volatility distributions of nitrated and non-nitrated reaction products that are obtained by fitting the kinetic model systematically to the experimental data using a global optimization method, the Monte Carlo genetic algorithm (MCGA). The results presented here provide new mechanistic insight into the processes leading to formation and evaporation of SOA. Most notably, the model suggests that the observed slow evaporation of SOA could be due to reversible oligomerization reactions in the particle phase. However, the observed non-linear behavior of precursor mixtures points towards a complex interplay of reversible oligomerization and kinetic limitations of mass transport in the particle phase, which is explored in a model sensitivity study. The methodologies described in this work provide a basis for quantitative analysis of multi-source data from environmental chamber experiments but also show that a large data pool is needed to fully resolve uncertainties in model parameters.

scholarly journals Secondary organic aerosol yields of 12-carbon alkanes

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 1423-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Loza ◽  
J. S. Craven ◽  
L. D. Yee ◽  
M. M. Coggon ◽  
R. H. Schwantes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Vapor Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Suspended Particle ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Branch Points ◽  
Mixing Ratios ◽  
Size Dependent ◽  
Wall Losses ◽  
Wall Loss

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) yields were measured for cyclododecane, hexylcyclohexane, n-dodecane, and 2-methylundecane under high-NOx conditions, in which alkyl proxy radicals (RO2) react primarily with NO, and under low-NOx conditions, in which RO2 reacts primarily with HO2. Experiments were run until 95–100% of the initial alkane had reacted. Particle wall loss was evaluated as two limiting cases using a new approach that requires only suspended particle number-size distribution data and accounts for size-dependent particle wall losses and condensation. SOA yield differed by a factor of 2 between the two limiting cases, but the same trends among alkane precursors were observed for both limiting cases. Vapor-phase wall losses were addressed through a modeling study and increased SOA yield uncertainty by approximately 30%. SOA yields were highest from cyclododecane under both NOx conditions. SOA yields ranged from 3.3% (dodecane, low-NOx conditions) to 160% (cyclododecane, high-NOx conditions). Under high-NOx conditions, SOA yields increased from 2-methylundecane < dodecane ~ hexylcyclohexane < cyclododecane, consistent with previous studies. Under low-NOx conditions, SOA yields increased from 2-methylundecane ~ dodecane < hexylcyclohexane < cyclododecane. The presence of cyclization in the parent alkane structure increased SOA yields, whereas the presence of branch points decreased SOA yields due to increased vapor-phase fragmentation. Vapor-phase fragmentation was found to be more prevalent under high-NOx conditions than under low-NOx conditions. For different initial mixing ratios of the same alkane and same NOx conditions, SOA yield did not correlate with SOA mass throughout SOA growth, suggesting kinetically limited SOA growth for these systems.

scholarly journals Organic peroxides' gas-particle partitioning and rapid heterogeneous decomposition on secondary organic aerosol

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 1837-1848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Li ◽  
Zhongming Chen ◽  
Liubin Huang ◽  
Dao Huang
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Organic Peroxides ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Important Species ◽  
Adverse Health Effects ◽  
Partitioning Coefficients ◽  
Phase Water

Abstract. Organic peroxides, important species in the atmosphere, promote secondary organic aerosol (SOA) aging, affect HOx radicals cycling, and cause adverse health effects. However, the formation, gas-particle partitioning, and evolution of organic peroxides are complicated and still unclear. In this study, we investigated in the laboratory the production and gas-particle partitioning of peroxides from the ozonolysis of α-pinene, which is one of the major biogenic volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere and an important precursor for SOA at a global scale. We have determined the molar yields of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hydromethyl hydroperoxide (HMHP), peroxyformic acid (PFA), peroxyacetic acid (PAA), and total peroxides (TPOs, including unknown peroxides) and the fraction of peroxides in α-pinene/O3 SOA. Comparing the gas-phase peroxides with the particle-phase peroxides, we find that gas-particle partitioning coefficients of PFA and PAA are 104 times higher than the values from the theoretical prediction, indicating that organic peroxides play a more important role in SOA formation than previously expected. Here, the partitioning coefficients of TPO were determined to be as high as (2–3)  ×  10−4 m3 µg−1. Even so, more than 80 % of the peroxides formed in the reaction remain in the gas phase. Water changes the distribution of gaseous peroxides, while it does not affect the total amount of peroxides in either the gas or the particle phase. Approx. 18 % of gaseous peroxides undergo rapid heterogeneous decomposition on SOA particles in the presence of water vapor, resulting in the additional production of H2O2. This process can partially explain the unexpectedly high H2O2 yields under wet conditions. Transformation of organic peroxides to H2O2 also preserves OH in the atmosphere, helping to improve the understanding of OH cycling.

scholarly journals Kinetic modeling of secondary organic aerosol formation: effects of particle- and gas-phase reactions of semivolatile products

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. 4135-4147 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. H. Chan ◽  
J. H. Kroll ◽  
N. L. Ng ◽  
J. H. Seinfeld
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Laboratory Data ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Formation Mechanisms ◽  
Hydrocarbon Oxidation ◽  
Phase Reaction ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Aerosol Formation ◽  
Kinetics Of

Abstract. The distinguishing mechanism of formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is the partitioning of semivolatile hydrocarbon oxidation products between the gas and aerosol phases. While SOA formation is typically described in terms of partitioning only, the rate of formation and ultimate yield of SOA can also depend on the kinetics of both gas- and aerosol-phase processes. We present a general equilibrium/kinetic model of SOA formation that provides a framework for evaluating the extent to which the controlling mechanisms of SOA formation can be inferred from laboratory chamber data. With this model we examine the effect on SOA formation of gas-phase oxidation of first-generation products to either more or less volatile species, of particle-phase reaction (both first- and second-order kinetics), of the rate of parent hydrocarbon oxidation, and of the extent of reaction of the parent hydrocarbon. The effect of pre-existing organic aerosol mass on SOA yield, an issue of direct relevance to the translation of laboratory data to atmospheric applications, is examined. The importance of direct chemical measurements of gas- and particle-phase species is underscored in identifying SOA formation mechanisms.

scholarly journals Kinetic modeling of Secondary Organic Aerosol formation: effects of particle- and gas-phase reactions of semivolatile products

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 7051-7085 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. H. Chan ◽  
J. H. Kroll ◽  
N. L. Ng ◽  
J. H. Seinfeld
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosol ◽  
Laboratory Data ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Formation Mechanisms ◽  
Hydrocarbon Oxidation ◽  
Phase Reaction ◽  
Particle Phase ◽  
Aerosol Formation ◽  
Kinetics Of

Abstract. The distinguishing mechanism of formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is the partitioning of semivolatile hydrocarbon oxidation products between the gas and aerosol phases. While SOA formation is typically described in terms of partitioning only, the rate of formation and ultimate yield of SOA can also depend on the kinetics of both gas- and aerosol-phase processes. We present a general equilibrium/kinetic model of SOA formation that provides a framework for evaluating the extent to which the controlling mechanisms of SOA formation can be inferred from laboratory chamber data. With this model we examine the effect on SOA formation of gas-phase oxidation of first-generation products to either more or less volatile species, of particle-phase reaction (both first- and second-order kinetics), of the rate of parent hydrocarbon oxidation, and of the extent of reaction of the parent hydrocarbon. The effect of pre-existing organic aerosol mass on SOA yield, an issue of direct relevance to the translation of laboratory data to atmospheric applications, is examined. The importance of direct chemical measurements of gas- and particle-phase species is underscored in identifying SOA formation mechanisms.

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