Dynamics and Sorption Kinetics of Methanol Monomers and Clusters on Nopinone Surfaces

Organic-organic interactions play important roles in secondary organic aerosol formation, but the interactions are complex and poorly understood. Here, we use environmental molecular beam experiments combined with molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the interactions between methanol and nopinone, as atmospheric organic proxies. In the experiments, methanol monomers and clusters are sent to collide with three types of surfaces, i.e., graphite, thin nopinone coating on graphite, and nopinone multilayer surfaces, at temperatures between 140 and 230 K. Methanol monomers are efficiently scattered from the graphite surface, whereas the scattering is substantially suppressed from nopinone surfaces. The thermal desorption from the three surfaces is similar, suggesting that all the surfaces have weak or similar influences on methanol desorption. All trapped methanol molecules completely desorb within a short experimental time scale at temperatures of 180 K and above. At lower temperatures, the desorption rate decreases, and a long experimental time scale is used to resolve the desorption, where three desorption components are identified. The fast component is beyond the experimental detection limit. The intermediate component exhibits multistep desorption character and has an activation energy of E-a = 0.18 +/- 0.03 eV, in good agreement with simulation results. The slow desorption component is related to diffusion processes due to the weak temperature dependence. The molecular dynamics results show that upon collisions the methanol clusters shatter, and the shattered fragments quickly diffuse and recombine to clusters. Desorption involves a series of processes, including detaching from clusters and desorbing as monomers. At lower temperatures, methanol forms compact cluster structures while at higher temperatures, the methanol molecules form layered structures on the nopinone surface, which are visible in the simulation. Also, the simulation is used to study the liquid-liquid interaction, where the methanol clusters completely dissolve in liquid nopinone, showing ideal organic-organic mixing.

Automated summary

Organic-organic interactions play key roles in secondary organic aerosol formation, with methanol and nopinone investigated as proxies. Methanol desorption is suppressed on nopinone surfaces, with multiple desorption components identified. Molecular dynamics simulations show methanol clusters shattering upon collisions and forming layered structures on nopinone surfaces at higher temperatures.