Improved quasi-unary nucleation model for binary H2SO4–H2O homogeneous nucleation

Aerosol nucleation events have been observed at a variety of locations worldwide, and may have significant climatic and health implications. Binary homogeneous nucleation (BHN) of H2SO4 and H2O is the foundation of recently proposed nucleation mechanisms involving additional species such as ammonia, ions, and organic compounds, and it may dominate atmospheric nucleation under certain conditions. We have shown in previous work that H2SO4-H2O BHN can be treated as a quasi-unary nucleation (QUN) process involving H2SO4 in equilibrium with H2O vapor, and we have developed a self-consistent kinetic model for H2SO4-H2O nucleation. Here, the QUN approach is improved, and an analytical expression yielding H2SO4-H2O QUN rates is derived. Two independent measurements related to monomer hydration are used to constrain the equilibrium constants for this process, which reduces a major source of uncertainty. It is also shown that the capillarity approximation may lead to a large error in the calculated Gibbs free energy change for the evaporation of H2SO4 molecules from small H2SO4-H2O clusters, which affects the accuracy of predicted BHN nucleation rates. The improved QUN model-taking into account the recently measured energetics of small clusters-is thermodynamically more robust. Moreover, predicted QUN nucleation rates are in better agreement with available experimental data than rates calculated using classical H2SO4-H2O BHN theory.