PNNL

Abstract

Gas-particle partitioning theory is widely used in atmospheric models to predict organic aerosol loadings. This theory predicts that secondary organic aerosol (SOA) yield of an oxidized VOC product will increase as the mass loading of preexisting organic aerosol increases. In a previous study, we showed that the presence of model hydrophobic primary organic aerosol (POA) had no detectable effect on the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) yields from ozonolysis of a-pinene, suggesting that the condensing SOA compounds form a separate phase from the preexisting POA. However, non-polar, hydrophobic POA may gradually become polar and hydrophilic as it undergoes oxidative aging while POA formed from biomass burning is already somewhat polar and hydrophilic. In this study, we investigate the effects of model hydrophilic POA such as fulvic acid, adipic acid and citric acid on the gas-particle partitioning of SOA from a-pinene ozonolysis. The results show that only citric acid seed significantly enhances the absorption of a-pinene SOA into the particle-phase. The other two POA seed particles have negligible effect on the a-pinene SOA yields, suggesting that a-pinene SOA forms a well-mixed organic aerosol phase with citric acid while a separate phase with adipic acid and fulvic acid. This finding highlights the need to improve the thermodynamics treatment of organics in current aerosol models that simply lump all hydrophilic organic species into a single phase, thereby potentially introducing an erroneous sensitivity of SOA mass to emitted POA.