Recent Advances in the Investigations of Primary and Secondary Organic Aerosols in Atmosphere

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 July 2024) | Viewed by 3374

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
Interests: air quality; zero-carbon solutions; SOA; regulatory modeling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For the better part of the past decade, organic aerosols, both primary (POA) and secondary (SOA), have been at the forefront of atmospheric science since they comprise a sizable part of particulate matter, making them relevant in policy discussions, especially since their concentrations are harder to control than inorganic species. Given the increased drive towards cleaner air and zero-carbon emissions, the intricate interactions between anthropogenic and biogenic emissions and the plethora of diverse sources (biomass burning, vegetation, industrial emissions, etc.), the composition of the atmosphere has been constantly changing. This makes investigating the lifecycle and chemistry of organic aerosols particularly challenging, due to the dependence of the underlying mechanisms on a multitude of factors, from NOx levels to liquid water content and acidity. Most of our knowledge concerning the above comes from field campaigns and chamber studies, which is then adapted for use in regulatory modeling. Air quality models still tend to underpredict organic aerosols, albeit at an increasingly reduced rate compared to past years, which highlights the fact that there are still gaps in our understanding that need to be filled. As such, this Special Issue is devoted to recent advances in our understanding of organic aerosols emission/formation, chemistry and lifecycle, either in a measurement or modeling context.

Dr. Petros N. Vasilakos
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • SOA
  • emissions
  • modeling
  • aerosol chemistry
  • biomass burning
  • measurements
  • chamber studies

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2829 KiB  
Article
Dry Deposition of Hydrophilic Black Carbon Aerosols in China
by Xiaolin Zhang, Awad Hussien Ahmed Mohammed, Yu Zhou and Mao Mao
Atmosphere 2023, 14(7), 1114; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14071114 - 5 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1261
Abstract
Atmospheric dry deposition of black carbon (BC) is a significant but poorly understood and inadequately described process in aerosol-climate models. The 40-year detailed dry deposition velocities of hydrophilic BC over China from 1981 to 2020 were systematically studied based on the MERRA-2 reanalysis [...] Read more.
Atmospheric dry deposition of black carbon (BC) is a significant but poorly understood and inadequately described process in aerosol-climate models. The 40-year detailed dry deposition velocities of hydrophilic BC over China from 1981 to 2020 were systematically studied based on the MERRA-2 reanalysis data, which hopefully will be beneficial for its applications in atmospheric systems for climate and air quality. The average dry deposition flux of hydrophilic BC over China was 0.00059 ± 0.00014 μg m−2 s−1, while its dry deposition velocity was estimated to be 0.00051 ± 0.00004 m s−1. The monthly mean dry deposition fluxes of hydrophilic BC varied nearly 1.5 fold, ranging from the lowest 0.00046 ± 0.00011 μg m−2 s−1 in August to the highest 0.00068 ± 0.00019 μg m−2 s−1 in January. The spring season had the highest mean dry deposition flux of hydrophilic BC, followed by summer and winter, whereas autumn showed relatively weaker dry deposition flux. The mean dry deposition velocities of hydrophilic BC over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Tibet Plateau were estimated to be 0.00042 ± 0.00004, 0.00042 ± 0.00004, 0.00051 ± 0.00006 and 0.00078 ± 0.00005 m s−1, respectively. The monthly and seasonal patterns of dry deposition velocities of hydrophilic BC differed from each other in different regions, and high air temperature or surface wind speed seemed to fortify dry deposition velocities of hydrophilic BC. Our study pointed to high dry deposition flux of hydrophilic BC in the northern China Plain and Sichuan Basin but large dry deposition velocities in the Tibet Plateau region. Full article
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19 pages, 4435 KiB  
Article
Characterization of Chemical Components and Optical Properties of Toluene Secondary Organic Aerosol in Presence of Ferric Chloride Fine Particles
by Weichao Wang, Mingqiang Huang, Huimin Hu, Weixiong Zhao, Changjin Hu, Xuejun Gu and Weijun Zhang
Atmosphere 2023, 14(7), 1075; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14071075 - 26 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1508
Abstract
Iron ion is the common transition metal ion in atmospheric aerosol, which can affect the components and optics of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). In the current study, the atmospheric photooxidation of toluene to produce SOA in the presence of ferric chloride fine particles [...] Read more.
Iron ion is the common transition metal ion in atmospheric aerosol, which can affect the components and optics of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). In the current study, the atmospheric photooxidation of toluene to produce SOA in the presence of ferric chloride fine particles is simulated in a smog chamber; on-line and off-line mass spectrometry and spectroscopic instruments are used to characterize constituents and optics of SOA. Compare with SOA formed in the absence of fine particles, the laser desorption/ionization mass spectra of toluene SOA generated in the presence of ferric chloride fine particles show ion peaks of m/z = 163 and 178, the UV-Vis spectra of the extracting solution for toluene SOA have peaks near 400 and 700 nm, and the electrospray ionization mass spectra contain peaks at m/z = 248 and 300. Based on this spectral information, it is shown that gaseous methylcatechol formed from photooxidation of toluene may react with iron ion on the surface of fine particles by complexing and oxidation–reduction, resulting in methylbenzoquinone products and metallo-organic complex ions such as [Fe(III)(CH3C6H3OO)]+, [Fe(III)(CH3C6H3 OO)2] and [Fe(III)(CH3C6H3OO)Cl2]. These products have strong light absorption ability, resulting in an increase in the averaged mass absorption coefficient (<MAC>) in the 200~1000 nm range and the MAC at 365 nm (MAC365) for toluene SOA, while <MAC> and MAC365 progressively increase with an increasing concentration of ferric chloride fine particles. These results serve as experimental references for the study of the formation mechanism and optical properties of metallo-organic complexes in atmospheric aerosol particles in regions experiencing high levels of fine particles of metal and automobile exhaust pollution. Full article
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