Search Results
Experimental study of the role of physicochemical surface processing on the IN ability of mineral dust particles
2011, Niedermeier, D., Hartmann, S., Clauss, T., Wex, H., Kiselev, A., Sullivan, R.C., DeMott, P.J., Petters, M.D., Reitz, P., Schneider, J., Mikhailov, E., Sierau, B., Stetzer, O., Reimann, B., Bundke, U., Shaw, R.A., Buchholz, A., Mentel, T.F., Stratmann, F.
During the measurement campaign FROST 2 (FReezing Of duST 2), the Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator (LACIS) was used to investigate the influence of various surface modifications on the ice nucleating ability of Arizona Test Dust (ATD) particles in the immersion freezing mode. The dust particles were exposed to sulfuric acid vapor, to water vapor with and without the addition of ammonia gas, and heat using a thermodenuder operating at 250 °C. Size selected, quasi monodisperse particles with a mobility diameter of 300 nm were fed into LACIS and droplets grew on these particles such that each droplet contained a single particle. Temperature dependent frozen fractions of these droplets were determined in a temperature range between −40 °C ≤T≤−28 °C. The pure ATD particles nucleated ice over a broad temperature range with their freezing behavior being separated into two freezing branches characterized through different slopes in the frozen fraction vs. temperature curves. Coating the ATD particles with sulfuric acid resulted in the particles' IN potential significantly decreasing in the first freezing branch (T>−35 °C) and a slight increase in the second branch (T≤−35 °C). The addition of water vapor after the sulfuric acid coating caused the disappearance of the first freezing branch and a strong reduction of the IN ability in the second freezing branch. The presence of ammonia gas during water vapor exposure had a negligible effect on the particles' IN ability compared to the effect of water vapor. Heating in the thermodenuder led to a decreased IN ability of the sulfuric acid coated particles for both branches but the additional heat did not or only slightly change the IN ability of the pure ATD and the water vapor exposed sulfuric acid coated particles. In other words, the combination of both sulfuric acid and water vapor being present is a main cause for the ice active surface features of the ATD particles being destroyed. A possible explanation could be the chemical transformation of ice active metal silicates to metal sulfates. The strongly enhanced reaction between sulfuric acid and dust in the presence of water vapor and the resulting significant reductions in IN potential are of importance for atmospheric ice cloud formation. Our findings suggest that the IN concentration can decrease by up to one order of magnitude for the conditions investigated.
Hygroscopic growth and droplet activation of soot particles: Uncoated, succinic or sulfuric acid coated
2012, Henning, S., Ziese, M., Kiselev, A., Saathoff, H., Möhler, O., Mentel, T.F., Buchholz, A., Spindler, C., Michaud, V., Monier, M., Sellegri, K., Stratmann, F.
The hygroscopic growth and droplet activation of uncoated soot particles and such coated with succinic acid and sulfuric acid were investigated during the IN-11 campaign at the Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere (AIDA) facility. A GFG-1000 soot generator applying either nitrogen or argon as carrier gas and a miniCAST soot generator were utilized to generate soot particles. Different organic carbon (OC) to black carbon (BC) ratios were adjusted for the CAST-soot by varying the fuel to air ratio. The hygroscopic growth was investigated by means of the mobile Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator (LACIS-mobile) and two different Hygroscopicity Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzers (HTDMA, VHTDMA). Two Cloud Condensation Nucleus Counter (CCNC) were applied to measure the activation of the particles. For the untreated soot particles neither hygroscopic growth nor activation was observed at a supersaturation of 1%, with exception of a partial activation of GFG-soot generated with argon as carrier gas. Coatings of succinic acid lead to a detectable hygroscopic growth of GFG-soot and enhanced the activated fraction of GFG- (carrier gas: argon) and CAST-soot, whereas no hygroscopic growth of the coated CAST-soot was found. Sulfuric acid coatings led to an OC-content dependent hygroscopic growth of CAST-soot. Such a dependence was not observed for activation measurements. Coating with sulfuric acid decreased the amount of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), which were detected by AMS-measurements in the CAST-soot, and increased the amount of substances with lower molecular weight than the initial PAHs. We assume that these reaction products increased the hygroscopicity of the coated particles in addition to the coating substance itself.