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Alternative pathway for atmospheric particles growth.

ABSTRACT: Credible climate change predictions require reliable fundamental scientific knowledge of the underlying processes. Despite extensive observational data accumulated to date, atmospheric aerosols still pose key uncertainties in the understanding of Earth's radiative balance due to direct interaction with radiation and because they modify clouds' properties. Specifically, major gaps exist in the understanding of the physicochemical pathways that lead to aerosol growth in the atmosphere and to changes in their properties while in the atmosphere. Traditionally, the driving forces for particle growth are attributed to condensation of low vapor pressure species following atmospheric oxidation of volatile compounds by gaseous oxidants. The current study presents experimental evidence of an unaccounted-for new photoinduced pathway for particle growth. We show that heterogeneous reactions activated by light can lead to fast uptake of noncondensable Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) at the surface of particles when only traces of a photosensitizer are present in the seed aerosol. Under such conditions, size and mass increase; changes in the chemical composition of the aerosol are also observed upon exposure to volatile organic compounds such as terpenes and near-UV irradiation. Experimentally determined growth rate values match field observations, suggesting that this photochemical process can provide a new, unaccounted-for pathway for atmospheric particle growth and should be considered by models.

SUBMITTER: Monge ME

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3344958 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Alternative pathway for atmospheric particles growth.

Monge Maria Eugenia ME Rosenørn Thomas T Favez Olivier O Müller Markus M Adler Gabriela G Abo Riziq Ali A Rudich Yinon Y Herrmann Hartmut H George Christian C D'Anna Barbara B

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20120418 18

Credible climate change predictions require reliable fundamental scientific knowledge of the underlying processes. Despite extensive observational data accumulated to date, atmospheric aerosols still pose key uncertainties in the understanding of Earth's radiative balance due to direct interaction with radiation and because they modify clouds' properties. Specifically, major gaps exist in the understanding of the physicochemical pathways that lead to aerosol growth in the atmosphere and to chang ...[more]

PMID: 22517749

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Project description:A list of authors and their affiliations appears at the end of the paper New-particle formation is a major contributor to urban smog1,2, but how it occurs in cities is often puzzling3. If the growth rates of urban particles are similar to those found in cleaner environments (1-10 nanometres per hour), then existing understanding suggests that new urban particles should be rapidly scavenged by the high concentration of pre-existing particles. Here we show, through experiments performed under atmospheric conditions in the CLOUD chamber at CERN, that below about +5 degrees Celsius, nitric acid and ammonia vapours can condense onto freshly nucleated particles as small as a few nanometres in diameter. Moreover, when it is cold enough (below -15 degrees Celsius), nitric acid and ammonia can nucleate directly through an acid-base stabilization mechanism to form ammonium nitrate particles. Given that these vapours are often one thousand times more abundant than sulfuric acid, the resulting particle growth rates can be extremely high, reaching well above 100 nanometres per hour. However, these high growth rates require the gas-particle ammonium nitrate system to be out of equilibrium in order to sustain gas-phase supersaturations. In view of the strong temperature dependence that we measure for the gas-phase supersaturations, we expect such transient conditions to occur in inhomogeneous urban settings, especially in wintertime, driven by vertical mixing and by strong local sources such as traffic. Even though rapid growth from nitric acid and ammonia condensation may last for only a few minutes, it is nonetheless fast enough to shepherd freshly nucleated particles through the smallest size range where they are most vulnerable to scavenging loss, thus greatly increasing their survival probability. We also expect nitric acid and ammonia nucleation and rapid growth to be important in the relatively clean and cold upper free troposphere, where ammonia can be convected from the continental boundary layer and nitric acid is abundant from electrical storms4,5.

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Alternative pathway for atmospheric particles growth.

Publications

Alternative pathway for atmospheric particles growth.

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