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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Evaporation of sulfate aerosols at low relative humidity
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2017) Tsagkogeorgas, Georgios; Roldin, Pontus; Duplissy, Jonathan; Rondo, Linda; Tröstl, Jasmin; Slowik, Jay G.; Ehrhart, Sebastian; Franchin, Alessandro; Kürten, Andreas; Amorim, Antonio; Bianchi, Federico; Kirkby, Jasper; Petäjä, Tuukka; Baltensperger, Urs; Boy, Michael; Curtius, Joachim; Flagan, Richard C.; Kulmala, Markku; Donahue, Neil M.; Stratmann, Frank
    Evaporation of sulfuric acid from particles can be important in the atmospheres of Earth and Venus. However, the equilibrium constant for the dissociation of H2SO4 to bisulfate ions, which is the one of the fundamental parameters controlling the evaporation of sulfur particles, is not well constrained. In this study we explore the volatility of sulfate particles at very low relative humidity. We measured the evaporation of sulfur particles versus temperature and relative humidity in the CLOUD chamber at CERN. We modelled the observed sulfur particle shrinkage with the ADCHAM model. Based on our model results, we conclude that the sulfur particle shrinkage is mainly governed by H2SO4 and potentially to some extent by SO3 evaporation. We found that the equilibrium constants for the dissociation of H2SO4 to HSO4-(KH2SO4) and the dehydration of H2SO4 to SO3 (KSO3) are KH2SO4 Combining double low line 2-4 × 109 kg-1 and KSO3 ≥ 1.4 × g 1010 at 288.8± 5K.
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    The effect of acid-base clustering and ions on the growth of atmospheric nano-particles
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Lehtipalo, Katrianne; Rondo, Linda; Kontkanen, Jenni; Schobesberger, Siegfried; Jokinen, Tuija; Sarnela, Nina; Kürten, Andreas; Ehrhart, Sebastian; Franchin, Alessandro; Nieminen, Tuomo; Kulmala, Markku; Riccobono, Francesco; Sipila, Mikko; Yli-Juuti, Taina; Duplissy, Jonathan; Adamov, Alexey; Ahlm, Lars; Almeida, Joa˜o; Amorim, Antonio; Bianchi, Federico; Breitenlechner, Martin; Dommen, Josef; Downard, Andrew J.; Dunne, Eimear M.; Flagan, Richard C.; Guida, Roberto; Hakala, Jani; Hansel, Armin; Jud, Werner; Kangasluoma, Juha; Kerminen, Veli-Matti; Keskinen, Helmi; Kim, Jaeseok; Kirkby, Jasper; Kupc, Agnieszka; Kupiainen-Määttä, Oona; Laaksonen, Ari; Lawler, Michael J.; Leiminger, Markus; Mathot, Serge; Olenius, Tinja; Ortega, Ismael K.; Onnela, Antti; Petäjä, Tuukka; Praplan, Arnaud; Rissanen, Matti P.; Ruuskanen, Taina; Santos, Filipe D.; Schallhart, Simon; Schnitzhofer, Ralf; Simon, Mario; Smith, James N.; Tröstl, Jasmin; Tsagkogeorgas, Georgios; Tomé, António; Vaattovaara, Petri; Vehkamäki, Hanna; Vrtala, Aron E.; Wagner, Paul E.; Williamson, Christina; Wimmer, Daniela; Winkler, Paul M.; Virtanen, Annele; Donahue, Neil M.; Carslaw, Kenneth S.; Baltensperger, Urs; Riipinen, Ilona; Curtius, Joachim; Worsnop, Douglas R.; Kulmala, Markku
    The growth of freshly formed aerosol particles can be the bottleneck in their survival to cloud condensation nuclei. It is therefore crucial to understand how particles grow in the atmosphere. Insufficient experimental data has impeded a profound understanding of nano-particle growth under atmospheric conditions. Here we study nano-particle growth in the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoors Droplets) chamber, starting from the formation of molecular clusters. We present measured growth rates at sub-3 nm sizes with different atmospherically relevant concentrations of sulphuric acid, water, ammonia and dimethylamine. We find that atmospheric ions and small acid-base clusters, which are not generally accounted for in the measurement of sulphuric acid vapour, can participate in the growth process, leading to enhanced growth rates. The availability of compounds capable of stabilizing sulphuric acid clusters governs the magnitude of these effects and thus the exact growth mechanism. We bring these observations into a coherent framework and discuss their significance in the atmosphere.
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    Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Kirkby, Jasper; Duplissy, Jonathan; Sengupta, Kamalika; Gordon, Hamish; Williamson, Christina; Heinritzi, Martin; Simon, Mario; Yan, Chao; Almeida, João; Tröstl, Jasmin; Nieminen, Tuomo; Ortega, Ismael K.; Wagner, Robert; Adamov, Alexey; Amorim, Antonio; Bernhammer, Anne-Kathrin; Bianchi, Federico; Breitenlechner, Martin; Brilke, Sophia; Chen, Xuemeng; Craven, Jill; Dias, Antonio; Ehrhart, Sebastian; Flagan, Richard C.; Franchin, Alessandro; Fuchs, Claudia; Guida, Roberto; Hakala, Jani; Hoyle, Christopher R.; Jokinen, Tuija; Junninen, Heikki; Kangasluoma, Juha; Kim, Jaeseok; Krapf, Manuel; Kürten, Andreas; Laaksonen, Ari; Lehtipalo, Katrianne; Makhmutov, Vladimir; Mathot, Serge; Molteni, Ugo; Onnela, Antti; Peräkylä, Otso; Piel, Felix; Petäjä, Tuukka; Praplan, Arnaud P.; Pringle, Kirsty; Rap, Alexandru; Richards, Nigel A.D.; Riipinen, Ilona; Rissanen, Matti P.; Rondo, Linda; Sarnela, Nina; Schobesberger, Siegfried; Scott, Catherine E.; Seinfeld, John H.; Sipilä, Mikko; Steiner, Gerhard; Stozhkov, Yuri; Stratmann, Frank; Tomé, Antonio; Virtanen, Annele; Vogel, Alexander L.; Wagner, Andrea C.; Wagner, Paul E.; Weingartner, Ernest; Wimmer, Daniela; Winkler, Paul M.; Ye, Penglin; Zhang, Xuan; Hansel, Armin; Dommen, Josef; Donahue, Neil M.; Worsnop, Douglas R.; Baltensperger, Urs; Kulmala, Markku; Carslaw, Kenneth S.; Curtius, Joachim
    Atmospheric aerosols and their effect on clouds are thought to be important for anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate, yet remain poorly understood1. Globally, around half of cloud condensation nuclei originate from nucleation of atmospheric vapours2. It is thought that sulfuric acid is essential to initiate most particle formation in the atmosphere3,4, and that ions have a relatively minor role5. Some laboratory studies, however, have reported organic particle formation without the intentional addition of sulfuric acid, although contamination could not be excluded6,7. Here we present evidence for the formation of aerosol particles from highly oxidized biogenic vapours in the absence of sulfuric acid in a large chamber under atmospheric conditions. The highly oxygenated molecules (HOMs) are produced by ozonolysis of α-pinene. We find that ions from Galactic cosmic rays increase the nucleation rate by one to two orders of magnitude compared with neutral nucleation. Our experimental findings are supported by quantum chemical calculations of the cluster binding energies of representative HOMs. Ion-induced nucleation of pure organic particles constitutes a potentially widespread source of aerosol particles in terrestrial environments with low sulfuric acid pollution.
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    Heterogeneous ice nucleation of viscous secondary organic aerosol produced from ozonolysis of α-pinene
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2016) Ignatius, Karoliina; Kristensen, Thomas B.; Järvinen, Emma; Nichman, Leonid; Fuchs, Claudia; Gordon, Hamish; Herenz, Paul; Hoyle, Christopher R.; Duplissy, Jonathan; Garimella, Sarvesh; Dias, Antonio; Frege, Carla; Höppel, Niko; Tröstl, Jasmin; Wagner, Robert; Yan, Chao; Amorim, Antonio; Baltensperger, Urs; Curtius, Joachim; Donahue, Neil M.; Gallagher, Martin W.; Kirkby, Jasper; Kulmala, Markku; Möhler, Ottmar; Saathoff, Harald; Schnaiter, Martin; Dulac, François; Tomé, Antonio; Virtanen, Annele; Worsnop, Douglas; Stratmann, Frank
    There are strong indications that particles containing secondary organic aerosol (SOA) exhibit amorphous solid or semi-solid phase states in the atmosphere. This may facilitate heterogeneous ice nucleation and thus influence cloud properties. However, experimental ice nucleation studies of biogenic SOA are scarce. Here, we investigated the ice nucleation ability of viscous SOA particles. The SOA particles were produced from the ozone initiated oxidation of α-pinene in an aerosol chamber at temperatures in the range from −38 to −10 °C at 5–15 % relative humidity with respect to water to ensure their formation in a highly viscous phase state, i.e. semi-solid or glassy. The ice nucleation ability of SOA particles with different sizes was investigated with a new continuous flow diffusion chamber. For the first time, we observed heterogeneous ice nucleation of viscous α-pinene SOA for ice saturation ratios between 1.3 and 1.4 significantly below the homogeneous freezing limit. The maximum frozen fractions found at temperatures between −39.0 and −37.2 °C ranged from 6 to 20 % and did not depend on the particle surface area. Global modelling of monoterpene SOA particles suggests that viscous biogenic SOA particles are indeed present in regions where cirrus cloud formation takes place. Hence, they could make up an important contribution to the global ice nucleating particle budget.
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    High Gas-Phase Methanesulfonic Acid Production in the OH-Initiated Oxidation of Dimethyl Sulfide at Low Temperatures
    (Columbus, Ohio : American Chemical Society, 2022) Shen, Jiali; Scholz, Wiebke; He, Xu-Cheng; Zhou, Putian; Marie, Guillaume; Wang, Mingyi; Marten, Ruby; Surdu, Mihnea; Rörup, Birte; Baalbaki, Rima; Amorim, Antonio; Ataei, Farnoush; Bell, David M.; Bertozzi, Barbara; Brasseur, Zoé; Caudillo, Lucía; Chen, Dexian; Chu, Biwu; Dada, Lubna; Duplissy, Jonathan; Finkenzeller, Henning; Granzin, Manuel; Guida, Roberto; Heinritzi, Martin; Hofbauer, Victoria; Iyer, Siddharth; Kemppainen, Deniz; Kong, Weimeng; Krechmer, Jordan E.; Kürten, Andreas; Lamkaddam, Houssni; Lee, Chuan Ping; Lopez, Brandon; Mahfouz, Naser G. A.; Manninen, Hanna E.; Massabò, Dario; Mauldin, Roy L.; Mentler, Bernhard; Müller, Tatjana; Pfeifer, Joschka; Philippov, Maxim; Piedehierro, Ana A.; Roldin, Pontus; Schobesberger, Siegfried; Simon, Mario; Stolzenburg, Dominik; Tham, Yee Jun; Tomé, António; Umo, Nsikanabasi Silas; Wang, Dongyu; Wang, Yonghong; Weber, Stefan K.; Welti, André; Wollesen de Jonge, Robin; Wu, Yusheng; Zauner-Wieczorek, Marcel; Zust, Felix; Baltensperger, Urs; Curtius, Joachim; Flagan, Richard C.; Hansel, Armin; Möhler, Ottmar; Petäjä, Tuukka; Volkamer, Rainer; Kulmala, Markku; Lehtipalo, Katrianne; Rissanen, Matti; Kirkby, Jasper; El-Haddad, Imad; Bianchi, Federico; Sipilä, Mikko; Donahue, Neil M.; Worsnop, Douglas R.
    Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) influences climate via cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) formation resulting from its oxidation products (mainly methanesulfonic acid, MSA, and sulfuric acid, H2SO4). Despite their importance, accurate prediction of MSA and H2SO4from DMS oxidation remains challenging. With comprehensive experiments carried out in the Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD) chamber at CERN, we show that decreasing the temperature from +25 to -10 °C enhances the gas-phase MSA production by an order of magnitude from OH-initiated DMS oxidation, while H2SO4production is modestly affected. This leads to a gas-phase H2SO4-to-MSA ratio (H2SO4/MSA) smaller than one at low temperatures, consistent with field observations in polar regions. With an updated DMS oxidation mechanism, we find that methanesulfinic acid, CH3S(O)OH, MSIA, forms large amounts of MSA. Overall, our results reveal that MSA yields are a factor of 2-10 higher than those predicted by the widely used Master Chemical Mechanism (MCMv3.3.1), and the NOxeffect is less significant than that of temperature. Our updated mechanism explains the high MSA production rates observed in field observations, especially at low temperatures, thus, substantiating the greater importance of MSA in the natural sulfur cycle and natural CCN formation. Our mechanism will improve the interpretation of present-day and historical gas-phase H2SO4/MSA measurements.