<p>Nitrous acid (HONO) is one of the important atmospheric trace gases due to its contribution to the cycles of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrogen oxides (HOx). In particular it acts as a precursor of tropospheric OH radicals, which is responsible for the self-cleansing capacity of the atmosphere [1,2]. We developed an instrument based on incoherent broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (IBBCEAS) for automatic measurement of HONO in a rural area in a summer period during a field "Campagne d&#8217;OBservation Intensive des Ae&#769;rosols et pre&#769;curseurs a&#768; Caillou&#235;l-Cr&#233;pigny (COBIACC)" in France. IBBCEAS technique is now extensively used in field applications for the measurements of both trace gases and aerosols [3,4].</p><p>Real-time in situ measurements of HONO and NO<sub>2</sub> have been simultaneously carried out. The IBBCEAS instrument performance has been demonstrated and validated through lab-based tests, and in particular through field intercomparison via side-by-side measurements of temporal concentration profiles of HONO and NO<sub>2</sub> in the rural area. The intercomparison of the concentration measurements between IBBCEAS and an instrument called MARGA (Monitor for AeRosols and Gases in Ambient air) for HONO, and IBBCEAS vs. a reference NOx analyzer for NO<sub>2</sub>. Good agreements have been observed which demonstrated the performance of the developed IBBCEAS instrument for the measurement of atmospheric HONO concentration (<5 ppb) in a rural area.</p><p>The preliminary experimental results will be presented and discussed.</p><p><strong>Acknowledgments</strong> This work was supported by the CPER CLIMIBIO program and the Labex CaPPA project (ANR-10-LABX005). The authors highly appreciate the offers of Mr. Eric Wetzels from Polyfluor Plastics bv for the help in our instrumental conception involving Teflon pipe.</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>[1] X. Li, T. Brauers, R. H&#228;seler, R. Bohn, H. Fuchs, A. Hofzumahaus, F. Holland, S. Lou, et al., Exploring the atmospheric chemistry of nitrous acid (HONO) at a rural site in Southern China, Atmos. Chem. Phys. <strong>12</strong> (2012) 1497-1513.</p><p>[2] H. Su, Y. Cheng, M. Shao, D. Gao, Z. Yu, L. Zeng, J. Slanina, et al., Nitrous acid (HONO) and its daytime sources at a rural site during the 2004 PRIDE&#8208;PRD experiment in China, J. Geophys. Res. <strong>113</strong> (2008) D14312.</p><p>[3] T. Wu, Q. Zha, W. Chen, Z. Xu, T. Wang, X. He, Development and deployment of a cavity enhanced UV-LED spectrometer for measurements of atmospheric HONO and NO<sub>2</sub> in Hong Kong, Atmos. Environ. <strong>95</strong> (2014) 544-551.</p><p>[4] L. Meng, G. Wang, P. Augustin, M. Fourmentin, Q. Gou, E. Fertein, T. N. Ba, C. Coeur, A. Tomas, W. Chen, Incoherent broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy-based strategy for direct measurement of aerosol extinction in lidar blind zone, Opt. Lett. <strong>45 </strong>(2020) 1611-1614.</p>
Supplementary material to "Comparison of nitrous acid detection using open-path incoherent broadband cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy and extractive long-path absorption photometry"
