A predictive thermodynamic framework of cloud droplet activation for chemically unresolved aerosol mixtures, including surface tension, non-ideality, and bulk–surface partitioning

This work presents a thermodynamically consistent framework that enables self-contained, predictive Köhler calculations of droplet growth and activation with considerations of surface adsorption, surface tension reduction, and non-ideal water activity for chemically complex and unresolved surface-active aerosol mixtures. The common presence of surface-active species in atmospheric aerosols is now well-established. However, the impacts of different effects driven by surface activity, in particular bulk–surface partitioning and resulting bulk depletion and/or surface tension reduction, on aerosol hygroscopic growth and cloud droplet activation remain to be generally established. Because specific characterization of key properties, including water activity and surface tension, remains exceedingly challenging for finite-sized activating droplets, a self-contained and thermodynamically consistent model framework is needed to resolve the individual effects of surface activity during droplet growth and activation. Previous frameworks have achieved this for simple aerosol mixtures, comprising at most a few well-defined chemical species. However, atmospheric aerosol mixtures and more realistic laboratory systems are typically chemically more complex and not well-defined (unresolved). Therefore, frameworks which require specific knowledge of the concentrations of all chemical species in the mixture and their composition-dependent interactions cannot be applied. For mixtures which are unresolved or where specific interactions between components are unknown, analytical models based on retrofitting can be applied, or the mixture can be represented by a proxy compound or mixture with well-known properties. However, the surface activity effects evaluated by such models cannot be independently verified. The presented model couples Köhler theory with the Gibbs adsorption and Szyszkowski-type surface tension equations. Contrary to previous thermodynamic frameworks, it is formulated on a mass basis to obtain a quantitative description of composition-dependent properties for chemically unresolved mixtures. Application of the model is illustrated by calculating cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity of aerosol particles comprising Nordic aquatic fulvic acid (NAFA), a chemically unresolved and strongly surface-active model atmospheric humic-like substance (HULIS), and NaCl, with dry diameters of 30–230 nm and compositions spanning the full range of relative NAFA and NaCl mixing ratios. For comparison with the model presented, several other predictive Köhler frameworks, with simplified treatments of surface-active NAFA, are also applied. Effects of NAFA surface activity are gauged via a suite of properties evaluated for growing and activating droplets. The presented framework predicts a similar influence of surface activity of the chemically complex NAFA on CCN activation as was previously shown for single, strong surfactants. Comparison to experimental CCN data shows that NAFA bulk–surface partitioning is well-represented by Gibbs adsorption thermodynamics. Contrary to several recent studies, no evidence of significantly reduced droplet surface tension at the point of activation was found. Calculations with the presented thermodynamic model show that throughout droplet growth and activation, the finite amounts of NAFA in microscopic and submicron droplets are strongly depleted from the bulk, due to bulk–surface partitioning, because surface areas for a given bulk volume are very large. As a result, both the effective hygroscopicity and ability of NAFA to reduce droplet surface tension are significantly lower in finite-sized activating droplets than in macroscopic aqueous solutions of the same overall composition. The presented framework enables the influence of surface activity on CCN activation for other chemically complex and unresolved aerosol mixtures, including actual atmospheric samples, to be systematically explored. Thermodynamic input parameters can be independently constrained from measurements, instead of being either approximated by a proxy or determined by retrofitting, potentially confounding several mechanisms influenced by surface activity.

Droplet activation of moderately surface active organic aerosol predicted with six approaches to surface activity

Surface active compounds (surfactants) found in atmospheric aerosols can decrease droplet surface tension as they adsorb to the droplet surfaces simultaneously depleting the droplet bulk. These processes may influence the activation properties of aerosols into cloud droplets and investigation of their role in cloud microphysics has been ongoing for decades. In this study, we have used six different approaches documented in the literature to represent surface activity in Köhler calculations predicting cloud droplet activation properties for particles consisting of one of three different moderately surface active organics mixed with ammonium sulphate in different ratios. We find that the different models predict comparable activation properties at small organic mass fractions in the dry particles for all three moderately surface active organics tested, even with large differences in the predicted degree of bulk-to-surface partitioning of the surface active component. However, differences between the models regarding both the predicted critical diameter and supersaturation for the same dry particle size increase with the organic fraction in the particles. Comparison with available experimental data shows that assuming complete bulk-to-surface partitioning of the organic component (total depletion of the bulk) along the full droplet growth curve does not adequately represent the activation properties of particles with high moderate surfactant mass fractions. Accounting for the surface tension depression mitigates some of the effect. Models that include the possibility for partial bulk-to-surface partitioning yield comparable results to the experimental data, even at high organic mass fractions in the particles. The study highlights the need for using thermodynamically consistent model frameworks to treat surface activity of atmospheric aerosols and for firm experimental validation of model predictions across a wide range of states relevant to the atmosphere.

Partitioning fast flow from stratified groundwater flow modulates seasonal variations of old streamwater transit times

<p>We develop a parsimonious model-data fusion to capture the groundwater contribution to stream discharge and its effect on variable transit times. The modeling strategy relies on partitioning infiltration between 1) Boussinesq groundwater flows in shallow aquifers and 2) fast flows close to the surface. Partitioning is controlled by the relative aquifer saturation inducing groundwater return flows and fast flows on saturated soils. Flowpaths are computed with a new 2D particle tracking algorithm to obtain transient transit time distributions. Hydraulic conductivity, total and drainable porosities are constrained through a sequential calibration strategy based on discharge time series and point-based CFC tracer data. Application on a 43 km2 catchment in Brittany (France) highlights the important contribution of old groundwater flow dynamics to streamflow's transit time distributions in all seasons under temperate climate conditions. The calibrated model succeeds in reproducing CFC-based groundwater ages as well as discharge dynamics at the outlet of the catchment. Slow groundwater circulation (baseflow and return flow) represents ca. 75% of the streamflow with strong seasonal variations (between 40 and 95%). Mean transit times are ca. 13 years, varying between 5 and 20 years, inversely proportional to the groundwater contribution. These seasonal variations are dominantly due to the flow partitioning between the aquifer and soil compartments with a second-order contribution of the groundwater transit times stratification.</p>

The freezing behavior of aqueous n-alcohol nanodroplets

Surface partitioning of short chain alcohols moderates their effect on ice formation.

Surface reservoirs dominate dynamic gas-surface partitioning of many indoor air constituents

Human health is affected by indoor air quality. One distinctive aspect of the indoor environment is its very large surface area that acts as a poorly characterized sink and source of gas-phase chemicals. In this work, air-surface interactions of 19 common indoor air contaminants with diverse properties and sources were monitored in a house using fast-response, on-line mass spectrometric and spectroscopic methods. Enhanced-ventilation experiments demonstrate that most of the contaminants reside in the surface reservoirs and not, as expected, in the gas phase. They participate in rapid air-surface partitioning that is much faster than air exchange. Phase distribution calculations are consistent with the observations when assuming simultaneous equilibria between air and large weakly polar and polar absorptive surface reservoirs, with acid-base dissociation in the polar reservoir. Chemical exposure assessments must account for the finding that contaminants that are fully volatile under outdoor air conditions instead behave as semivolatile compounds indoors.

Insights into the behavior of nonanoic acid and its conjugate base at the air/water interface through a combined experimental and theoretical approach

The surface partitioning of a medium chain fatty acid and its conjugate base has been investigated through a combined experimental and theoretical approach of the multi-equilibria involved in the bulk phase and at the air/water interface.

Sea spray aerosol organic enrichment, water uptake and surface tension effects

The aerosol driven radiative effects on marine low-level cloud represent a large uncertainty in climate simulations, in particular over the Southern Ocean, which is also an important region for sea spray aerosol production. Observations of sea spray aerosol organic enrichment and the resulting impact on water uptake over the remote southern hemisphere are scarce, and are therefore the region is under-represented in existing parameterisations. The Surface Ocean Aerosol Production (SOAP) voyage was a 23 day voyage which sampled three phytoplankton blooms in the highly productive water of the Chatham Rise, east of New Zealand. In this study we examined the enrichment of organics to nascent sea spray aerosol and the modifications to sea spray aerosol water uptake using in-situ chamber measurements of seawater samples taken during the SOAP voyage. Primary marine organics contributed up to 23 % of the sea spray mass for particles with diameter less than approximately 1 μm, and up to 87 % of the particle volume in the Aitken mode. The composition of the organic fraction was consistent throughout the voyage and was largely comprised of a polysaccharide-like component, characterised by very low alkane to hydroxyl concentration ratios of approximately 0.1–0.2. The enrichment of organics was compared to the output from the chlorophyll-a based sea spray aerosol parameterisation suggested by Gantt et al. (2011) and the OCEANFILMS models. OCEANFILMS improved on the representation of the organic fraction predicted using chlorophyll-a, in particular when the co-adsoprtion of polysaccharides was included, however the model still under predicted the proportion of polysaccharides by an average of 33 %. Nascent sea spray aerosol hygroscopic growth factors averaged 1.93 ± 0.08, and did not decrease with increasing sea spray aerosol organic fractions. The observed hygroscopicity was greater than expected from the assumption of full solubility, particularly during the most productive phytoplankton bloom (B1), during which organic fractions were greater than approximately 0.4. The water uptake behaviour observed in this study is consistent with that observed for other measurements of phytoplankton blooms, and was attributed to the surface partitioning of the organic components which leads to a decrease in particle surface tension and an increase in hygroscopicity. The compressed film model was used to estimate the influence of surface partitioning and the error in the modelled hygroscopicity was low only when the entire organic fraction was available to partition to the particle surface. The modelled sea spray aerosol hygroscopicity at high organic fractions was underestimated when only a portion of the organic component was available to be partitioned to the surface. The findings from the SOAP voyage highlight the influence of biologically-sourced organics on sea spray aerosol composition, these data improve the capacity to parameterise sea spray aerosol organic enrichment and water uptake.

Insights into the morphology of multicomponent organic and inorganic aerosols from molecular dynamics simulations

We explore the morphologies of multicomponent nanoparticles through atomistic molecular dynamics simulations under atmospherically relevant conditions. The particles investigated consist of both organic (cis-pinonic acid – CPA, 3-methyl-1,2,3-butanetricarboxylic acid – MBTCA, n-C20H42, n-C24H50, n-C30H62 or mixtures thereof) and inorganic (sulfate, ammonium and water) compounds. The effects of relative humidity, organic mass content and type of organic compound present in the nanoparticle are investigated. Phase separation is predicted for almost all simulated nanoparticles either between organics and inorganics or between hydrophobic and hydrophilic constituents. For oxygenated organics, our simulations predict an enrichment of the nanoparticle surface in organics, often in the form of islands depending on the level of humidity and organic mass fraction, giving rise to core–shell structures. In several cases the organics separate from the inorganics, especially from the ions. For particles containing water-insoluble linear alkanes, separate hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains are predicted to develop. The surface partitioning of organics is enhanced as the humidity increases. The presence of organics in the interior of the nanoparticle increases as their overall mass fraction in the nanoparticle increases, but this also depends on the humidity conditions. Apart from the organics–inorganics and hydrophobics–hydrophilics separation, our simulations predict a third type of separation (layering) between CPA and MBTCA molecules under certain conditions.

Cloud condensation nuclei activity of six pollenkitts and the influence of their surface activity

The role of surfactants in governing water interactions of atmospheric aerosols has been a recurring topic in cloud microphysics for more than two decades. Studies of detailed surface thermodynamics are limited by the availability of aerosol samples for experimental analysis and incomplete validation of various proposed Köhler model frameworks for complex mixtures representative of atmospheric aerosol. Pollenkitt is a viscous material that coats grains of pollen and plays important roles in pollen dispersion and plant reproduction. Previous work suggests that it may also be an important contributor to pollen water uptake and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity. The chemical composition of pollenkitt varies between species but has been found to comprise complex organic mixtures including oxygenated, lipid, and aliphatic functionalities. This mix of functionalities suggests that pollenkitt may display aqueous surface activity, which could significantly impact pollen interactions with atmospheric water. Here, we study the surface activity of pollenkitt from six different species and its influence on pollenkitt hygroscopicity. We measure cloud droplet activation and concentration-dependent surface tension of pollenkitt and its mixtures with ammonium sulfate salt. Experiments are compared to predictions from several thermodynamic models, taking aqueous surface tension reduction and surfactant surface partitioning into account in various ways. We find a clear reduction of surface tension by pollenkitt in aqueous solution and evidence for impact of both surface tension and surface partitioning mechanisms on cloud droplet activation potential and hygroscopicity of pollenkitt particles. In addition, we find indications of complex nonideal solution effects in a systematic and consistent dependency of pollenkitt hygroscopicity on particle size. The impact of pollenkitt surface activity on cloud microphysics is different from what is observed in previous work for simple atmospheric surfactants and more resembles recent observations for complex primary and secondary organic aerosol, adding new insight to our understanding of the multifaceted role of surfactants in governing aerosol–water interactions. We illustrate how the explicit characterization of pollenkitt contributions provides the basis for modeling water uptake and cloud formation of pollen and their fragments over a wide range of atmospheric conditions.