| 1. |
- Almeida, Joao, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular understanding of sulphuric acid-amine particle nucleation in the atmosphere
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 502:7471, s. 359-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nucleation of aerosol particles from trace atmospheric vapours is thought to provide up to half of global cloud condensation nuclei(1). Aerosols can cause a net cooling of climate by scattering sunlight and by leading to smaller but more numerous cloud droplets, which makes clouds brighter and extends their lifetimes(2). Atmospheric aerosols derived from human activities are thought to have compensated for a large fraction of the warming caused by greenhouse gases(2). However, despite its importance for climate, atmospheric nucleation is poorly understood. Recently, it has been shown that sulphuric acid and ammonia cannot explain particle formation rates observed in the lower atmosphere(3). It is thought that amines may enhance nucleation(4-16), but until now there has been no direct evidence for amine ternary nucleation under atmospheric conditions. Here we use the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) chamber at CERN and find that dimethylamine above three parts per trillion by volume can enhance particle formation rates more than 1,000-fold compared with ammonia, sufficient to account for the particle formation rates observed in the atmosphere. Molecular analysis of the clusters reveals that the faster nucleation is explained by a base-stabilization mechanism involving acid-amine pairs, which strongly decrease evaporation. The ion-induced contribution is generally small, reflecting the high stability of sulphuric acid-dimethylamine clusters and indicating that galactic cosmic rays exert only a small influence on their formation, except at low overall formation rates. Our experimental measurements are well reproduced by a dynamical model based on quantum chemical calculations of binding energies of molecular clusters, without any fitted parameters. These results show that, in regions of the atmosphere near amine sources, both amines and sulphur dioxide should be considered when assessing the impact of anthropogenic activities on particle formation.
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| 2. |
- Huang, Wei, et al.
(författare)
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Potential pre-industrial–like new particle formation induced by pure biogenic organic vapors in Finnish peatland
- 2024
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - 2375-2548. ; 10:14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pure biogenic new particle formation (NPF) induced by highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) could be an important mechanism for pre-industrial aerosol formation. However, it has not been unambiguously confirmed in the ambient due to the scarcity of truly pristine continental locations in the present-day atmosphere or the lack of chemical characterization of NPF precursors. Here, we report ambient observations of pure biogenic HOM-driven NPF over a peatland in southern Finland. Meteorological decoupling processes formed an “air pocket” (i.e., a very shallow surface layer) at night and favored NPF initiated entirely by biogenic HOM from this peatland, whose atmospheric environment closely resembles that of the pre-industrial era. Our study sheds light on pre-industrial aerosol formation, which represents the baseline for estimating the impact of present and future aerosol on climate, as well as on future NPF, the features of which may revert toward pre-industrial–like conditions due to air pollution mitigation.
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| 3. |
- Kirkby, Jasper, et al.
(författare)
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Atmospheric new particle formation from the CERN CLOUD experiment
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 16:11, s. 948-957
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aerosol particles in the atmosphere profoundly influence public health and climate. Ultrafine particles enter the body through the lungs and can translocate to essentially all organs, and they represent a major yet poorly understood health risk. Human activities have considerably increased aerosols and cloudiness since preindustrial times, but they remain persistently uncertain and underrepresented in global climate models. Here we present a synthesis of the current understanding of atmospheric new particle formation derived from laboratory measurements at the CERN CLOUD chamber. Whereas the importance of sulfuric acid has long been recognized, condensable vapours such as highly oxygenated organics and iodine oxoacids also play key roles, together with stabilizers such as ammonia, amines and ions from galactic cosmic rays. We discuss how insights from CLOUD experiments are helping to interpret new particle formation in different atmospheric environments, and to provide a mechanistic foundation for air quality and climate models. The CLOUD experiment provides important insights into new particle formation in different atmospheric environments.
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| 4. |
- Kirkby, Jasper, et al.
(författare)
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Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 533:7604, s. 521-526
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atmospheric aerosols and their effect on clouds are thought to be important for anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate, yet remain poorly understood(1). Globally, around half of cloud condensation nuclei originate from nucleation of atmospheric vapours(2). It is thought that sulfuric acid is essential to initiate most particle formation in the atmosphere(3,4), and that ions have a relatively minor role(5). Some laboratory studies, however, have reported organic particle formation without the intentional addition of sulfuric acid, although contamination could not be excluded(6,7). Here we present evidence for the formation of aerosol particles from highly oxidized biogenic vapours in the absence of sulfuric acid in a large chamber under atmospheric conditions. The highly oxygenated molecules (HOMs) are produced by ozonolysis of a-pinene. We find that ions from Galactic cosmic rays increase the nucleation rate by one to two orders of magnitude compared with neutral nucleation. Our experimental findings are supported by quantum chemical calculations of the cluster binding energies of representative HOMs. Ion-induced nucleation of pure organic particles constitutes a potentially widespread source of aerosol particles in terrestrial environments with low sulfuric acid pollution.
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| 5. |
- Lawler, Michael J., et al.
(författare)
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Unexpectedly acidic nanoparticles formed in dimethylamine-ammonia-sulfuric-acid nucleation experiments at CLOUD
- 2016
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 16:21, s. 13601-13618
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- New particle formation driven by acid-base chemistry was initiated in the CLOUD chamber at CERN by introducing atmospherically relevant levels of gas-phase sulfuric acid and dimethylamine (DMA). Ammonia was also present in the chamber as a gas-phase contaminant from earlier experiments. The composition of particles with volume median diameters (VMDs) as small as 10 nm was measured by the Thermal Desorption Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TDCIMS). Particulate ammonium-to-dimethylaminium ratios were higher than the gas-phase ammonia-to-DMA ratios, suggesting preferential uptake of ammonia over DMA for the collected 10-30 nm VMD particles. This behavior is not consistent with present nanoparticle physicochemical models, which predict a higher dimethylaminium fraction when NH3 and DMA are present at similar gas-phase concentrations. Despite the presence in the gas phase of at least 100 times higher base concentrations than sulfuric acid, the recently formed particles always had measured base : acid ratios lower than 1 : 1. The lowest base fractions were found in particles below 15 nm VMD, with a strong size-dependent composition gradient. The reasons for the very acidic composition remain uncertain, but a plausible explanation is that the particles did not reach thermodynamic equilibrium with respect to the bases due to rapid heterogeneous conversion of SO2 to sulfate. These results indicate that sulfuric acid does not require stabilization by ammonium or dimethylaminium as acid-base pairs in particles as small as 10 nm.
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| 6. |
- Lehtipalo, Katrianne, et al.
(författare)
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Multicomponent new particle formation from sulfuric acid, ammonia, and biogenic vapors
- 2018
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2375-2548. ; 4:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A major fraction of atmospheric aerosol particles, which affect both air quality and climate, form from gaseous precursors in the atmosphere. Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs), formed by oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds, are known to participate in particle formation and growth. However, it is not well understood how they interact with atmospheric pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) from fossil fuel combustion, as well as ammonia (NH3) from livestock and fertilizers. Here, we show how NOx suppresses particle formation, while HOMs, sulfuric acid, and NH3 have a synergistic enhancing effect on particle formation. We postulate a novel mechanism, involving HOMs, sulfuric acid, and ammonia, which is able to closely reproduce observations of particle formation and growth in daytime boreal forest and similar environments. The findings elucidate the complex interactions between biogenic and anthropogenic vapors in the atmospheric aerosol system.
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| 7. |
- Lehtipalo, Katrianne, et al.
(författare)
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The effect of acid-base clustering and ions on the growth of atmospheric nano-particles
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The growth of freshly formed aerosol particles can be the bottleneck in their survival to cloud condensation nuclei. It is therefore crucial to understand how particles grow in the atmosphere. Insufficient experimental data has impeded a profound understanding of nano-particle growth under atmospheric conditions. Here we study nano-particle growth in the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoors Droplets) chamber, starting from the formation of molecular clusters. We present measured growth rates at sub-3 nm sizes with different atmospherically relevant concentrations of sulphuric acid, water, ammonia and dimethylamine. We find that atmospheric ions and small acid-base clusters, which are not generally accounted for in the measurement of sulphuric acid vapour, can participate in the growth process, leading to enhanced growth rates. The availability of compounds capable of stabilizing sulphuric acid clusters governs the magnitude of these effects and thus the exact growth mechanism. We bring these observations into a coherent framework and discuss their significance in the atmosphere.
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| 8. |
- Nie, Wei, et al.
(författare)
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NO at low concentration can enhance the formation of highly oxygenated biogenic molecules in the atmosphere
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - Malmö : IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet AB. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The interaction between nitrogen monoxide (NO) and organic peroxy radicals (RO2) greatly impacts the formation of highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOM), the key precursors of secondary organic aerosols. It has been thought that HOM production can be significantly suppressed by NO even at low concentrations. Here, we perform dedicated experiments focusing on HOM formation from monoterpenes at low NO concentrations (0 – 82 pptv). We demonstrate that such low NO can enhance HOM production by modulating the RO2 loss and favoring the formation of alkoxy radicals that can continue to autoxidize through isomerization.These insights suggest that HOM yields from typical boreal forest emissions can vary between 2.5%-6.5%, and HOM formation will not be completely inhibited even at high NO concentrations. Our findings challenge the notion that NO monotonically reduces HOM yields by extending the knowledge of RO2-NO interactions to the low-NO regime. This represents a major advance towards an accurate assessment of HOM budgets, especially in low-NO environments, which prevails in the preindustrial atmosphere, pristine areas, and the upper boundary layer.
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| 9. |
- Tröstl, Jasmin, et al.
(författare)
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The role of low-volatility organic compounds in initial particle growth in the atmosphere
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 533:7604, s. 527-531
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- About half of present-day cloud condensation nuclei originate from atmospheric nucleation, frequently appearing as a burst of new particles near midday(1). Atmospheric observations show that the growth rate of new particles often accelerates when the diameter of the particles is between one and ten nanometres(2,3). In this critical size range, new particles are most likely to be lost by coagulation with pre-existing particles(4), thereby failing to form new cloud condensation nuclei that are typically 50 to 100 nanometres across. Sulfuric acid vapour is often involved in nucleation but is too scarce to explain most subsequent growth(5,6), leaving organic vapours as the most plausible alternative, at least in the planetary boundary layer(7-10). Although recent studies(11-13) predict that low-volatility organic vapours contribute during initial growth, direct evidence has been lacking. The accelerating growth may result from increased photolytic production of condensable organic species in the afternoon(2), and the presence of a possible Kelvin (curvature) effect, which inhibits organic vapour condensation on the smallest particles (the nano-Kohler theory)(2,14), has so far remained ambiguous. Here we present experiments performed in a large chamber under atmospheric conditions that investigate the role of organic vapours in the initial growth of nucleated organic particles in the absence of inorganic acids and bases such as sulfuric acid or ammonia and amines, respectively. Using data from the same set of experiments, it has been shown(15) that organic vapours alone can drive nucleation. We focus on the growth of nucleated particles and find that the organic vapours that drive initial growth have extremely low volatilities (saturation concentration less than 10(-4.5) micrograms per cubic metre). As the particles increase in size and the Kelvin barrier falls, subsequent growth is primarily due to more abundant organic vapours of slightly higher volatility (saturation concentrations of 10(-4.5) to 10(-0.5) micrograms per cubic metre). We present a particle growth model that quantitatively reproduces our measurements. Furthermore, we implement a parameterization of the first steps of growth in a global aerosol model and find that concentrations of atmospheric cloud concentration nuclei can change substantially in response, that is, by up to 50 per cent in comparison with previously assumed growth rate parameterizations.
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| 10. |
- Tsagkogeorgas, Georgios, et al.
(författare)
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Evaporation of sulfate aerosols at low relative humidity
- 2017
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 17:14, s. 8923-8938
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Evaporation of sulfuric acid from particles can be important in the atmospheres of Earth and Venus. However, the equilibrium constant for the dissociation of H2SO4 to bisulfate ions, which is the one of the fundamental parameters controlling the evaporation of sulfur particles, is not well constrained. In this study we explore the volatility of sulfate particles at very low relative humidity. We measured the evaporation of sulfur particles versus temperature and relative humidity in the CLOUD chamber at CERN. We modelled the observed sulfur particle shrinkage with the ADCHAM model. Based on our model results, we conclude that the sulfur particle shrinkage is mainly governed by H2SO4 and potentially to some extent by SO3 evaporation. We found that the equilibrium constants for the dissociation of H2SO4 to HSO4-(KH2SO4) and the dehydration of H2SO4 to SO3 (KSO3) are KH2SO4 Combining double low line 2-4 × 109 kg-1 and KSO3 ≥ 1.4 × g 1010 at 288.8± 5K.
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