A Significant Role for Nitrate and Peroxide Groups on Indoor Secondary Organic Aerosol

This paper reports indoor secondary organic aerosol, SOA, composition based on the results from an improved model for indoor air chemistry. The model uses a detailed chemical mechanism that is near-explicit to describe the gas-phase degradation of relevant indoor VOC species. In addition, gas-to-particle partitioning is included for oxygenated products formed from the degradation of limonene, the most ubiquitous terpenoid species in the indoor environment. The detail inherent in the chemical mechanism permits the indoor SOA composition to be reported in greater detail than currently possible using experimental techniques. For typical indoor conditions in the suburban UK, SOA concentrations are similar to 1 mu g m(-3) and dominated by nitrated material (similar to 85%), with smaller contributions from peroxide (12%), carbonyl (3%), and acidic (1%) material. During cleaning activities, SOA concentrations can reach 20 mu g m(-3) with the composition dominated by peroxide material (73%), with a smaller contribution from nitrated material (21%). The relative importance of these different moieties depends crucially (in order) on the outdoor concentration of O-3, the deposition rates employed and the scaling factor value applied to the partitioning coefficient. There are currently few studies that report observation of aerosol composition indoors, and most of these have been carried out under conditions that are not directly relevant. This study highlights the need to investigate SOA composition in real indoor environments. Further, there is a need to measure deposition rates for key indoor air species on relevant indoor surfaces and to reduce the uncertainties that still exist in gas-to-particle phase parametrization for both indoor and outdoor air chemistry models.