| 1. |
- Ahlberg, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of salt seed particle surface area, composition and phase on secondary organic aerosol mass yields in oxidation flow reactors
- 2019
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 19:4, s. 2701-2712
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atmospheric particulate water is ubiquitous, affecting particle transport and uptake of gases. Yet, research on the effect of water on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mass yields is not consistent. In this study, the SOA mass yields of an α-pinene and m-xylene mixture, at a concentration of 60 μgm-3, were examined using an oxidation flow reactor operated at a relative humidity (RH) of 60% and a residence time of 160 s. Wet or dried ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate seed particles were used. By varying the amount of seed particle surface area, the underestimation of SOA formation induced by the short residence time in flow reactors was confirmed. Starting at a SOA mass concentration of 5 μgm-3, the maximum yield increased by a factor of 2 with dry seed particles and on average a factor of 3.2 with wet seed particles. Hence, wet particles increased the SOA mass yield by 60% compared to the dry experiment. Maximum yield in the reactor was achieved using a surface area concentration of 1600 μm2 cm-3. This corresponded to a condensational lifetime of 20 s for low-volatility organics. The O V C ratio of SOA on wet ammonium sulfate was significantly higher than when using ammonium nitrate or dry ammonium sulfate seed particles, probably due to differences in heterogeneous chemistry.
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| 2. |
- Ahlberg, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Measurement report : Black carbon properties and concentrations in southern Sweden urban and rural air-the importance of long-range transport
- 2023
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 23:5, s. 3051-3064
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soot, or black carbon (BC), aerosol is a major climate forcer with severe health effects. The impacts depend strongly on particle number concentration, size and mixing state. This work reports on two field campaigns at nearby urban and rural sites, 65gkm apart, in southern Sweden during late summer 2018. BC was measured using a single-particle soot photometer (SP2) and Aethalometers (AE33). Differences in BC concentrations between the sites are driven primarily by local traffic emissions. Equivalent and refractory BC mass concentrations at the urban site were on average a factor 2.2 and 2.5, with peaks during rush hour up to a factor g1/44, higher than the rural background levels. The number fraction of particles containing a soot core was significantly higher in the city. BC particles at the urban site were on average smaller by mass and had less coating owing to fresh traffic emissions. The organic components of the fresh traffic plumes were similar in mass spectral signature to hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol (HOA), commonly associated with traffic. Despite the intense local traffic (g1/4g30g000 vehicles passing per day), PM1, including organic aerosol, was dominated by aged continental air masses even at the curbside site. The fraction of thickly coated particles at the urban site was highly correlated with the mass concentrations of all measured chemical species of PM1, consistent with aged, internally mixed aerosol. Trajectory analysis for the whole year showed that air masses arriving at the rural site from eastern Europe contained approximately double the amount of BC compared to air masses from western Europe. Furthermore, the largest regional emissions of BC transported to the rural site, from the Malmö-Copenhagen urban area, are discernible above background levels only when precipitation events are excluded. We show that continental Europe and not the Malmö-Copenhagen region is the major contributor to the background BC mass concentrations in southern Sweden.
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| 3. |
- Ahlberg, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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No particle mass enhancement from induced atmospheric ageing at a rural site in northern Europe
- 2019
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Ingår i: Atmosphere. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4433. ; 10:7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large portion of atmospheric aerosol particles consists of secondary material produced by oxidation reactions. The relative importance of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) can increase with improved emission regulations. A relatively simple way to study potential particle formation in the atmosphere is by using oxidation flow reactors (OFRs) which simulate atmospheric ageing. Here we report on the first ambient OFR ageing experiment in Europe, coupled with scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS), aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) and proton transfer reaction (PTR)-MS measurements. We found that the simulated ageing did not produce any measurable increases in particle mass or number concentrations during the two months of the campaign due to low concentrations of precursors. Losses in the reactor increased with hydroxyl radical (OH) exposure and with increasing difference between ambient and reactor temperatures, indicating fragmentation and evaporation of semivolatile material.
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| 4. |
- Ahlberg, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Secondary organic aerosol from VOC mixtures in an oxidation flow reactor
- 2017
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 1352-2310. ; 161, s. 210-220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The atmospheric organic aerosol is a tremendously complex system in terms of chemical content. Models generally treat the mixtures as ideal, something which has been questioned owing to model-measurement discrepancies. We used an oxidation flow reactor to produce secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mixtures containing oxidation products of biogenic (α-pinene, myrcene and isoprene) and anthropogenic (m-xylene) volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The resulting volume concentration and chemical composition was measured using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) and a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS), respectively. The SOA mass yield of the mixtures was compared to a partitioning model constructed from single VOC experiments. The single VOC SOA mass yields with no wall-loss correction applied are comparable to previous experiments. In the mixtures containing myrcene a higher yield than expected was produced. We attribute this to an increased condensation sink, arising from myrcene producing a significantly higher number of nucleation particles compared to the other precursors. Isoprene did not produce much mass in single VOC experiments but contributed to the mass of the mixtures. The effect of high concentrations of isoprene on the OH exposure was found to be small, even at OH reactivities that previously have been reported to significantly suppress OH exposures in oxidation flow reactors. Furthermore, isoprene shifted the particle size distribution of mixtures towards larger sizes, which could be due to a change in oxidant dynamics inside the reactor.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Axel, et al.
(författare)
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Diesel soot aging in urban plumes within hours under cold dark and humid conditions
- 2017
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Fresh and aged diesel soot particles have different impacts on climate and human health. While fresh diesel soot particles are highly aspherical and non-hygroscopic, aged particles are spherical and hygroscopic. Aging and its effect on water uptake also controls the dispersion of diesel soot in the atmosphere. Understanding the timescales on which diesel soot ages in the atmosphere is thus important, yet knowledge thereof is lacking. We show that under cold, dark and humid conditions the atmospheric transformation from fresh to aged soot occurs on a timescale of less than five hours. Under dry conditions in the laboratory, diesel soot transformation is much less efficient. While photochemistry drives soot aging, our data show it is not always a limiting factor. Field observations together with aerosol process model simulations show that the rapid ambient diesel soot aging in urban plumes is caused by coupled ammonium nitrate formation and water uptake.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Nordin, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Influence of ozone initiated processing on the toxicity of aerosol particles from small scale wood combustion
- 2015
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 1352-2310 .- 1873-2844. ; 102, s. 282-289
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Black carbon containing emissions from biomass combustion are being transformed in the atmosphere upon processing induced by tropospheric ozone and UV. The knowledge today is very limited on how atmospheric processing affects the toxicological properties of the emissions. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of ozone initiated (dark) atmospheric processing on the physicochemical and toxicological properties of particulate emissions from wood combustion. Emissions from a conventional wood stove operated at two combustion conditions (nominal and hot air starved) were diluted and transferred to a chamber. Particulate matter (PM) was collected before and after ozone addition to the chamber using an impactor. Detailed chemical and physical characterization was performed on chamber air and collected PM. The collected PM was investigated toxicologically in vitro with a mouse macrophage model, endpoints included: cell cycle analysis, viability, inflammation and genotoxicity. The results suggest that changes in the organic fraction, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the main driver for differences in obtained toxicological effects. Fresh hot air starved emissions containing a higher organic and PAH mass-fraction affected cell viability stronger than fresh emissions from nominal combustion. The PAH mass fractions decreased upon aging due to chemical degradation. Dark aging increased genotoxicity, reduced viability and reduced release of inflammatory markers. These differences were statistically significant for single doses and typically less pronounced. We hypothesize that the alterations in toxicity upon simulated dark aging in the atmosphere may be caused by reaction products that form when PAHs and other organic compounds react with ozone and nitrate radicals. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
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| 10. |
- Nordin, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Smog Chamber Experiments of SOA Formation from Gasoline Exhaust and Light Aromatics
- 2010
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Experiments where gasoline exhaust was exposed to UV-radiation to examine Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA) formation were performed in a smog chamber. The Aerosol Mass Yield (formed SOA/reacted precursor mass) was determined and compared with the yield from a pure precursor experiment in the chamber and from results reported in literature. Preliminary results show that the majority of the organic aerosol mass emitted from idling gasoline cars is secondary. Further, the SOA yields when taking only C6-C10 light aromatics into account are within a similar range to pure precursor experiments, suggesting that light aromatics are dominating precursors in gasoline exhaust SOA.
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