Comparison of Methods for Predicting the Compositional Dependence of the Density and Refractive Index of Organic-Aqueous Aerosols.

Representing the physicochemical properties of aerosol particles of complex composition is of crucial importance for understanding and predicting aerosol thermodynamic, kinetic, and optical properties and processes and for interpreting and comparing analysis methods. Here, we consider the representations of the density and refractive index of aqueous-organic aerosol with a particular focus on the dependence of these properties on relative humidity and water content, including an examination of the properties of solution aerosol droplets existing at supersaturated solute concentrations. Using bulk phase measurements of density and refractive index for typical organic aerosol components, we provide robust approaches for the estimation of these properties for aerosol at any intermediate composition between pure water and pure solute. Approximately 70 compounds are considered, including mono-, di- and tricarboxylic acids, alcohols, diols, nitriles, sulfoxides, amides, ethers, sugars, amino acids, aminium sulfates, and polyols. We conclude that the molar refraction mixing rule should be used to predict the refractive index of the solution using a density treatment that assumes ideal mixing or, preferably, a polynomial dependence on the square root of the mass fraction of solute, depending on the solubility limit of the organic component. Although the uncertainties in the density and refractive index predictions depend on the range of subsaturated compositional data available for each compound, typical errors for estimating the solution density and refractive index are less than ±0.1% and ±0.05%, respectively. Owing to the direct connection between molar refraction and the molecular polarizability, along with the availability of group contribution models for predicting molecular polarizability for organic species, our rigorous testing of the molar refraction mixing rule provides a route to predicting refractive indices for aqueous solutions containing organic molecules of arbitrary structure.

Variabilities and uncertainties in characterising water transport kinetics in glassy and ultraviscous aerosol.

We present a comprehensive evaluation of the variabilities and uncertainties present in determining the kinetics of water transport in ultraviscous aerosol droplets, alongside new measurements of the water transport timescale in sucrose aerosol. Measurements are performed on individual droplets captured using aerosol optical tweezers and the change in particle size during water evaporation or condensation is inferred from shifts in the wavelength of the whispering gallery mode peaks at which spontaneous Raman scattering is enhanced. The characteristic relaxation timescale (τ) for condensation or evaporation of water from viscous droplets following a change in gas phase relative humidity can be described by the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts function. To adequately characterise the water transport kinetics and determine τ, sufficient time must be allowed for the particle to progress towards the final state. However, instabilities in the environmental conditions can prevent an accurate characterisation of the kinetics over such long time frames. Comparison with established thermodynamic and diffusional water transport models suggests the determination of τ is insensitive to the choice of thermodynamic treatment. We report excellent agreement between experimental and simulated evaporation timescales, and investigate the scaling of τ with droplet radius. A clear increase in τ is observed for condensation with increase in drying (wait) time. This trend is qualitatively supported by model simulations.

Water diffusion in atmospherically relevant α-pinene secondary organic material.

Secondary organic material (SOM) constitutes a large mass fraction of atmospheric aerosol particles. Understanding its impact on climate and air quality relies on accurate models of interactions with water vapour. Recent research shows that SOM can be highly viscous and can even behave mechanically like a solid, leading to suggestions that particles exist out of equilibrium with water vapour in the atmosphere. In order to quantify any kinetic limitation we need to know water diffusion coefficients for SOM, but this quantity has, until now, only been estimated and has not yet been measured. We have directly measured water diffusion coefficients in the water soluble fraction of α-pinene SOM between 240 and 280 K. Here we show that, although this material can behave mechanically like a solid, at 280 K water diffusion is not kinetically limited on timescales of 1 s for atmospheric-sized particles. However, diffusion slows as temperature decreases. We use our measured data to constrain a Vignes-type parameterisation, which we extend to lower temperatures to show that SOM can take hours to equilibrate with water vapour under very cold conditions. Our modelling for 100 nm particles predicts that under mid- to upper-tropospheric conditions radial inhomogeneities in water content produce a low viscosity surface region and more solid interior, with implications for heterogeneous chemistry and ice nucleation.

Timescales of water transport in viscous aerosol: measurements on sub-micron particles and dependence on conditioning history.

Evaporation studies of single aqueous sucrose aerosol particles as a function of relative humidity (RH) are presented for coarse and fine mode particles down into the submicron size range (600 nm < r < 3.0 µm). These sucrose particles serve as a proxy for biogenic secondary organic aerosols that have been shown to exist, under ambient conditions, in an ultraviscous glassy state, which can affect the kinetics of water mass transport within the bulk phase and hinder particle response to changes in the gas phase water content. A counter-propagating Bessel beams (CPBBs) optical trapping setup is employed to monitor the real-time change in the particle radius with RH decreasing from 75% to 5%. The slow-down of the size change upon each RH step and the deviation from the theoretical equilibrium hygroscopic growth curve indicate the onset of glassy behavior in the RH range of 10-40%. Size-dependent effects were not observed within the uncertainty of the measurements. The influence of the drying time below the glass transition RH on the timescale of subsequent water condensation and re-equilibration for sucrose particles is explored by optical tweezers measurements of micron-sized particles (3 µm < r < 6 µm). The timescale for water condensation and re-equilibration is shown to increase with increasing drying time, i.e. the time over which a viscous particle is dried below 5% RH. These studies demonstrate the importance of the history of the particle conditioning on subsequent water condensation and re-equilibration dynamics of ultraviscous and glassy aerosol particles.

Measurements of the sensitivity of aerosol hygroscopicity and the κ parameter to the O/C ratio.

We report measurements of the subsaturated hygroscopic growth of aerosol particles composed of single organic components of varying oxygen-to-carbon ratio up to relative humidities approaching saturation using the techniques of aerosol optical tweezers and an electrodynamic balance. The variation in the hygroscopicity parameter κ between compounds of even the same O/C ratio is found to be significant with, for example, a range in κ values from 0.12 to 0.38 for compounds with an O/C of 1. The measurements are compared with a review of all of the available literature data for which both the κ value and O/C ratio are reported, and a new parametrization is determined. Critical supersaturations predicted using this parametrization yield values that have associated uncertainties that are comparable to typical uncertainties in experimental measurements of critical supersaturations. However, the systematic variability between κ parametrizations determined from different studies remains large, consistent with the O/C ratio providing only an approximate guide to aerosol hygroscopicity and reflecting significant variations for aerosols of different chemical functionality, composition, and oxidation history.

Simultaneous analysis of the equilibrium hygroscopicity and water transport kinetics of liquid aerosol.

We demonstrate that the equilibrium hygroscopic response of an aerosol droplet and the kinetics of water condensation and evaporation can be retrieved with high accuracy, even close to saturation, through comparative measurements of probe and sample aerosol droplets. The experimental methodology is described and is based on an electrodynamic balance with a newly designed trapping chamber. Through use of a probe aerosol, composed of either pure water or a sodium chloride solution of known concentration, the gas-phase relative humidity (RH) can be accurately measured with an uncertainty of typically <0.005. By fast manipulation of the airflows into the chamber, a step-change in RH over a time scale of <0.5 s can be achieved. Using this approach, the kinetics of mass transfer are studied using the comparative procedure, and results are compared to theoretical mass flux predictions. The time-dependent measured mass fluxes for sodium chloride, ammonium sulfate, sorbitol, and galactose are used to calculate droplet water activities as a function of the droplet growth factor, allowing retrieval of a hygroscopic growth curve in a matter of seconds. Comparisons with both new and established thermodynamic predictions of hygroscopicity, as well as to optical tweezers measurements, are presented, demonstrating good agreement within the experimental uncertainties.

Comparison of the accuracy of aerosol refractive index measurements from single particle and ensemble techniques.

The ability of two techniques, aerosol cavity ring down spectroscopy (A-CRDS) and optical tweezers, to retrieve the refractive index of atmospherically relevant aerosol was compared through analysis of supersaturated sodium nitrate at a range of relative humidities. Accumulation mode particles in the diameter range 300-600 nm were probed using A-CRDS, with optical tweezer measurements performed on coarse mode particles several micrometers in diameter. A correction for doubly charged particles was applied in the A-CRDS measurements. Both techniques were found to retrieve refractive indices in good agreement with previously published results from Tang and Munkelwitz, with a precision of ±0.0012 for the optical tweezers and ±0.02 for the A-CRDS technique. The coarse mode optical tweezer measurements agreed most closely with refractive index predictions made using a mass-weighted linear mixing rule. The uncertainty in the refractive index retrieved by the A-CRDS technique prevented discrimination between predictions using both mass-weighted and volume-weighted linear mixing rules. No efflorescence or kinetic limitations on water transport between the particle and the gas phase were observed at relative humidities down to 14%. The magnitude of the uncertainty in refractive index retrieved using the A-CRDS technique reflects the challenges in determining particle optical properties in the accumulation mode, where the extinction efficiency varies steeply with particle size.