Ozonolysis of Mixed Oleic Acid/n-Docosane Particles: The Roles of Phase, Morphology, and Metastable States

A review of efflorescence kinetics studies on atmospherically relevant particles

The efflorescence transitions of aerosol particles have been intensively investigated due to their critical impacts on global climate and atmospheric chemistry. In the present study, we present a critical review of efflorescence kinetics focusing on three key issues: the efflorescence relative humidity (ERH) and the influence factors for aerosol ERH (e.g. particle sizes, and temperature); efflorescence processes of mixed aerosols, concerning the effect of coexisting inorganic and organic components on the efflorescence of inorganic salts; homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation rates of pure and mixed aerosols. Among the previous studies, there are significant discrepancies for measured aerosol ERH under even the same conditions. Moreover, the interactions between organic and inorganic components remain largely unclear, causing efflorescence transition behaviours and chemical composition evolutions of certain mixed systems to be debatable. Thus, it is important to better understand efflorescence to gain insights into the physicochemical properties and characterize observed efflorescence characteristics of atmospheric particles, as well as guide further studies on aerosol hygroscopicity and reactivity.

Effect of Bulk Composition on the Heterogeneous Oxidation of Semi-Solid Atmospheric Aerosols

The OH-initiated heterogeneous oxidation of semi-solid saccharide particles with varying bulk compositions was investigated in an atmospheric pressure flow tube at 30% relative humidity. Reactive uptake coefficients were determined from the rate loss of the saccharide reactants measured by mass spectrometry at different monosaccharide (methyl-β-d-glucopyranoside, C7H14O6) and disaccharide (lactose, C12H22O11) molar ratios. The reactive uptake for the monosaccharide was found to decrease from 0.53 ± 0.10 to 0.05 ± 0.06 as the mono-to-disaccharide molar ratio changed from 8:1 to 1:1. A reaction–diffusion model was developed in order to determine the effect of chemical composition on the reactive uptake. The observed decays can be reproduced using a Vignes relationship to predict the composition dependence of the reactant diffusion coefficients. The experimental data and model results suggest that the addition of the disaccharide significantly increases the particle viscosity leading to slower mass transport phenomena from the bulk to the particle surface and to a decreased reactivity. These findings illustrate the impact of bulk composition on reactant bulk diffusivity which determines the rate-limiting step during the chemical transformation of semi-solid particles in the atmosphere.

Research on Measurement Technology of Thermophysical Properties for Full-Scale Phase Change Material Product in a Container

The thermophysical properties of phase change material include thermal conductivity, heat of absorption, and phase change temperature range. This paper investigates the measurement methods of thermophysical properties for phase change material inside a full-scale container. The influence of contact thermal resistance is considered in a thermal conductivity test, and the formula for calculating the thermal conductivity of a phase change material inside the full-scale container is derived. In addition, the heat of absorption is measured based on the calibration results of the correction coefficient for heat flux sensors. In order to verify the reliability of the measurement method, the thermophysical properties of docosane and erythritol inside a full-scale specimen are measured, and the results are compared with HotDisk analyzer results and published data. The comparison results reveal that the method proposed in this paper can accurately measure the thermophysical properties of phase change material inside a full-scale specimen.

Ozone initiated heterogeneous oxidation of unsaturated carboxylic acids by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy

Despite considerable effort has been directed to ozone-initiated heterogeneous oxidation of unsaturated organic species in atmospheric environment, current knowledge about how chemical structure of unsaturated carboxylic acids affects their reaction kinetics remains very limited. Here, kinetics of heterogeneous reaction of ozone with six unsaturated fatty acids (oleic acid, vaccenic acid, eladic acid, myristoleic acid, palmitoleic acid and 2-hexadecenoic acid) were studied via a flow system combined with attenuated total reflection Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Pseudo-first-order rate constants (k_app) and overall reactive uptake coefficients (γ) values were derived according to the changes in absorbance from infrared spectra. Results have shown reaction rates are highly dependent on structures of unsaturated fatty acids. Cis-isomer has faster reaction kinetics than trans-isomer, and conjugated system between CC and CO bonds can greatly inhibit reactivity. Also, it is found that a longer carbon chain length between CC bond and COOH group or a shorter chain length between CC bond and last carbon seemingly enhances reaction kinetics. In addition, changes in redox activity and hydrophilicity of oleic acid samples before and after exposure ozone have been reported for the first time. Results have revealed that ozone-initiated heterogeneous reaction can markedly increase redox activity and hydrophilicity of unsaturated carboxylic acids.

Formation and evolution of aqueous organic aerosols via concurrent condensation and chemical aging

We review recent results on the formation and evolution of aqueous organic aerosols via concurrent nucleation/condensation and chemical aging processes obtained mostly using the formalism of classical nucleation theory In this framework, an aqueous organic aerosol was modeled as a spherical particle of liquid solution of water and hydrophilic and hydrophobic condensable organic compounds; besides these compounds, the surrounding air contained some chemically reactive, non-condensable species. Hydrophobic organic molecules on the aerosol surface can be processed by chemical reactions with some atmospheric species; this affects the hygroscopicity of the aerosol and hence its ability to become a cloud droplet. Such processing is most probably triggered by atmospheric hydroxyl radicals that abstract hydrogen atoms from surfactant molecules located on the aerosol surface (first step), resulting radicals being quickly oxidized by ubiquitous atmospheric oxygen molecules to produce surface-bound peroxyl radicals (second step). These two reactions play a crucial role in the enhancement of the Köhler activation of the aerosol. Taking them and a third reaction (next in the multistep chain of relevant heterogeneous reactions) into account, one can derive an explicit expression for the free energy of formation of a four-component aqueous droplet on a ternary aqueous organic aerosol as a function of four independent variables of state of a droplet. This approach was also applied to study a large subset of primary marine aerosols which can be initially treated using an "inverted micelle" model whereof the core consists of aqueous "salt" solution. Numerical evaluations suggest that the formation of cloud droplets on such (both aqueous hydrophilic/hydrophobic organic and marine) aerosols is most likely to occur via Köhler activation rather than via nucleation. The models allow one to determine the threshold parameters necessary for the Köhler activation of such aerosols. Furthermore, heterogeneous chemical reactions involved in the chemical aging of aerosols are most likely exothermic. Due to the release of the enthalpy of these reactions, the temperature of an aerosol particle during its chemical aging may become greater than the ambient (air) temperature. The analysis of the characteristic timescales of four most important processes involved suggests that this effect may play a significant impeding role in the formation of an ensemble of aqueous secondary organic aerosols via nucleation and, hence, must be taken into account in atmospheric aerosol and global climate models.

Effect of Heterogeneous Chemical Reactions on the Köhler Activation of Aqueous Organic Aerosols

We study some thermodynamic aspects of the activation of aqueous organic aerosols into cloud droplets considering the aerosols to consist of liquid solution of water and hydrophilic and hydrophobic organic compounds, taking into account the presence of reactive species in the air. The hydrophobic (surfactant) organic molecules on the surface of such an aerosol can be processed by chemical reactions with some atmospheric species; this affects the hygroscopicity of the aerosol and hence its ability to become a cloud droplet either via nucleation or via Köhler activation. The most probable pathway of such processing involves atmospheric hydroxyl radicals that abstract hydrogen atoms from hydrophobic organic molecules located on the aerosol surface (first step), the resulting radicals being quickly oxidized by ubiquitous atmospheric oxygen molecules to produce surface-bound peroxyl radicals (second step). These two reactions play a crucial role in the enhancement of the Köhler activation of the aerosol and its evolution into a cloud droplet. Taking them and a third reaction (next in the multistep chain of relevant heterogeneous reactions) into account, one can derive an explicit expression for the free energy of formation of a four-component aqueous droplet on a ternary aqueous organic aerosol as a function of four independent variables of state of a droplet. The results of numerical calculations suggest that the formation of cloud droplets on such (aqueous hydrophilic/hydrophobic organic) aerosols is most likely to occur as a Köhler activation-like process rather than via nucleation. The model allows one to determine the threshold parameters of the system necessary for the Köhler activation of such aerosols, which are predicted to be very sensitive to the equilibrium constant of the chain of three heterogeneous reactions involved in the chemical aging of aerosols.

OH-initiated heterogeneous oxidation of internally-mixed squalane and secondary organic aerosol

Recent work has established that secondary organic aerosol (SOA) can exist as an amorphous solid, leading to various suggestions that the addition of SOA coatings to existing particles will decrease the reactivity of those particles toward common atmospheric oxidants. Experimental evidence suggests that O3 is unable to physically diffuse through an exterior semisolid or solid layer thus inhibiting reaction with the core. The extent to which this suppression in reactivity occurs for OH has not been established, nor has this been demonstrated specifically for SOA. Here, measurements of the influence of adding a coating of α-pinene+O3 SOA onto squalane particles on the OH-initiated heterogeneous oxidation rate are reported. The chemical composition of the oxidized internally mixed particles was monitored online using a vacuum ultraviolet-aerosol mass spectrometer. Variations in the squalane oxidation rate with particle composition were quantified by measurement of the effective uptake coefficient, γeff, which is the loss rate of a species relative to the oxidant-particle collision rate. Instead of decreasing, the measured γeff increased continuously as the SOA coating thickness increased, by a factor of ∼2 for a SOA coating thickness of 42 nm (corresponding to ca. two-thirds of the particle mass). These results indicate that heterogeneous oxidation of ambient aerosol by OH radicals is not inhibited by SOA coatings, and further that condensed phase chemical pathways and rates in organic particles depend importantly on composition.

"Virtual injector" flow tube method for measuring relative rates kinetics of gas-phase and aerosol species

A new method for measuring gas-phase and aerosol reaction kinetics is described in which the gas flow, itself, acts as a "virtual injector" continuously increasing the contact time in analogy to conventional movable-injector kinetics techniques. In this method a laser is directed down the length of a flow tube, instantly initiating reaction by photodissociation of a precursor species at every point throughout the flow tube. Key tropospheric reactants such as OH, Cl, NO(3), and O(3) can be generated with nearly uniform concentrations along the length of the flow tube in this manner using 355 nm radiation from the third harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser. As the flow travels down the flow tube, both the gas-phase and particle-phase species react with the photogenerated radicals or O(3) for increasingly longer time before exiting and being detected. The advantages of this method are that (1) any wall loss of gas-phase and particle species is automatically accounted for, (2) the reactions are conducted under nearly pseudo-first-order conditions, (3) the progress of the reaction is followed as a continuous function of reaction time instead of reactant concentration, (4) data collection is quick with an entire decay trace being collected in as little as 1 min, (5) relative rates of several species can be measured simultaneously, and (6) bimolecular rate constants at least as small as k = 10(-17) (cm(3)/molecule)/s, or aerosol uptake coefficients at least as small as γ = 10(-4), can be measured. Using the virtual injector technique with an aerosol chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) as a detector, examples of gas-phase relative rates and uptake by oleic acid particles are given for OH, Cl, NO(3), and O(3) reactions with most agreeing to within 20% of published values, where available.

Mass spectrometry of atmospheric aerosols--recent developments and applications. Part II: On-line mass spectrometry techniques

Many of the significant advances in our understanding of atmospheric particles can be attributed to the application of mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry provides high sensitivity with fast response time to probe chemically complex particles. This review focuses on recent developments and applications in the field of mass spectrometry of atmospheric aerosols. In Part II of this two-part review, we concentrate on real-time mass spectrometry techniques, which provide high time resolution for insight into brief events and diurnal changes while eliminating the potential artifacts acquired during long-term filter sampling. In particular, real-time mass spectrometry has been shown recently to provide the ability to probe the chemical composition of ambient individual particles <30 nm in diameter to further our understanding of how particles are formed through nucleation in the atmosphere. Further, transportable real-time mass spectrometry techniques are now used frequently on ground-, ship-, and aircraft-based studies around the globe to further our understanding of the spatial distribution of atmospheric aerosols. In addition, coupling aerosol mass spectrometry techniques with other measurements in series has allowed the in situ determination of chemically resolved particle effective density, refractive index, volatility, and cloud activation properties.

Reactive uptake kinetics of NO3 on multicomponent and multiphase organic mixtures containing unsaturated and saturated organics

We investigated the reactive uptake of NO(3) (an important night-time oxidant in the atmosphere) on binary mixtures containing an unsaturated organic (methyl oleate) and saturated molecules (diethyl sebacate, dioctyl sebacate, and squalane) which we call matrix molecules. These studies were carried out to better understand the reactivity of unsaturated organics in multicomponent and multiphase atmospheric particles. For liquid binary mixtures the reactivity of methyl oleate depended on the matrix molecule. Assuming a bulk reaction, H(matrix)√(D(matrix)k(oleate)) varied by a factor of 2.7, and assuming a surface reaction H(matrix)(S)K(matrix)(S)k(oleate)(S) varied by a factor of 3.6, where H(matrix)√(D(matrix)k(oleate) and H(matrix)(S)K(matrix)(S)k(oleate)(S) are constants extracted from the data using the resistor model. For solid-liquid mixtures, the reactive uptake coefficient depended on exposure time: the uptake decreased by a factor of 10 after exposure to NO(3) for approximately 90 min. By assuming either a bulk or surface reaction, the atmospheric lifetime of methyl oleate in different matrices was estimated for moderately polluted atmospheric conditions. For all liquid mixtures, the lifetime was in the order of a few minutes (with an upper limit of 35 min). These lifetimes can be used as lower limits to the lifetimes in semi-solid mixtures. Our studies emphasize that the lifetime of unsaturated organics (similar to methyl oleate) is likely short if the particle matrix is in a liquid state.