Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 49, Issue 22, Pages 13168-13178Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b03377
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Eurochamp-2 [E2-2009-06-24-0001, E2-2011-04-19-0059]
- Fundacion CEAM
- National Centre for Atmospheric Science
- Yorkshire Forward
- Northern Way Initiative
- Generalitat Valenciana
- DESESTRES- Prometeo II project
- MINECO, through INNPLANTA Project [PCT-440000-2010-003]
- FEDER [CEAM10-3 X 10-1301, CEAM10-3 X 10-1302]
- NERC PhD studentship [NE106026057]
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/E019161/1, NE/E016081/1, NE/K005448/1, NE/I020040/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/E019161/1, NE/I020040/1, NE/K005448/1, NE/E016081/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is well-known to have adverse effects on air quality and human health. However, the dynamic mechanisms occurring during SOA formation and evolution are poorly understood. The time-resolved SOA composition formed during the photo-oxidation of three aromatic compounds, methyl chavicol, toluene and 4-methyl catechol, were investigated at the European Photoreactor. SOA was collected using a particle into liquid sampler and analyzed offline using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry to produce temporal profiles of individual photo-oxidation products. In the photo-oxidation of methyl chavicol, 70 individual compounds were characterized and three distinctive temporal profile shapes were observed. The calculated mass fraction C-i,C-aer/C-OA) of the individual SOA compounds showed either a linear trend (increasing/decreasing) or exponential decay with time. Substituted nitrophenols showed an exponential decay, with the nitro-group on the aromatic ring found to control the formation and loss of these species in the aerosol phase. Nitrophenols from both methyl chavicol and toluene photo-oxidation experiments showed a strong relationship with the NO2/NO (ppbv/ppbv) ratio and were observed during initial SOA growth. The location of the nitrophenol aromatic substitutions was found to be critically important, with the nitrophenol in the photo-oxidation of 4-methyl catechol not partitioning into the aerosol phase until irradiation had stopped; highlighting the importance of studying SOA formation and evolution at a molecular level.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available