PNNL

Abstract

The interaction between atmospheric particles and water vapor impacts directly and significantly the effect that these particles exert on the atmosphere. The hygroscopicity of individual particles, which is a quantitative measure of their response to changes in relative humidity, is related to their internal compositions. To properly include atmospheric aerosols in any model requires knowledge of the relationship between particle size, composition and hygroscopicity. Here we demonstrate the capability to conduct in real-time the simultaneous measurements of individual ambient particle hygroscopic growth factors, densities and compositions using a hydrated tandem differential mobility analyzer that is coupled to an ultra-sensitive single particle mass spectrometer. We use as an example the class of particles that are composed of sulfate mixed with oxygenated organics to illustrate how such multidimensional single particle characterization can be used to yield quantitative information about the composition of individual particles. We show that the data provide the relative concentrations of organics and sulfates, the density of the two fractions and particle hygroscopicity.