Aqueous phase processing of secondary organic aerosol from isoprene photooxidation

authors

• Liu Y.
• Monod Anne
• Tritscher T.
• Praplan A. P.
• Decarlo P. F.
• Temime-Roussel Brice
• Quivet E.
• Marchand Nicolas
• Dommen J.
• Baltensperger U.

document type

abstract

Transport of reactive air masses into humid and wet areas is highly frequent in the atmosphere, making the study of aqueous phase processing of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) very relevant. We have investigated the aque-ous phase processing of SOA generated from gas-phase pho-tooxidation of isoprene using a smog chamber. The SOA collected on filters was extracted by water and subsequently oxidized in the aqueous phase either by H 2 O 2 under dark conditions or by OH radicals in the presence of light, using a pho-tochemical reactor. Online and offline analytical techniques including SMPS, HR-AMS, H-TDMA, TD-API-AMS, were employed for physical and chemical characterization of the chamber SOA and nebulized filter extracts. After aqueous phase processing, the particles were significantly more hy-groscopic, and HR-AMS data showed higher signal intensity at m/z 44 and a lower signal intensity at m/z 43, thus showing the impact of aqueous phase processing on SOA aging, in good agreement with a few previous studies. Additional offline measurement techniques (IC-MS, APCI-MS 2 and HPLC-APCI-MS) permitted the identification and quantifi-cation of sixteen individual chemical compounds before and after aqueous phase processing. Among these compounds, small organic acids (including formic, glyoxylic, glycolic, butyric, oxalic and 2,3-dihydroxymethacrylic acid (i.e. 2-methylglyceric acid)) were detected, and their concentrations significantly increased after aqueous phase processing. In particular, the aqueous phase formation of 2-methylglyceric acid and trihydroxy-3-methylbutanal was correlated with the consumption of 2,3-dihydroxy-2-methyl-propanal, and 2-methylbutane-1,2,3,4-tetrol, respectively, and an aqueous phase mechanism was proposed accordingly. Overall, the aging effect observed here was rather small compared to previous studies, and this limited effect could possibly be explained by the lower liquid phase OH concentrations employed here, and/or the development of oligomers observed during aqueous phase processing.

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