Missed Evaporation from Atmospherically Relevant Inorganic Mixtures Confounds Experimental Aerosol Studies.
Environ Sci Technol
; 57(7): 2706-2714, 2023 02 21.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36758144
ABSTRACT
Sea salt aerosol particles are highly abundant in the atmosphere and play important roles in the global radiative balance. After influence from continental air, they are typically composed of Na+, Cl-, NH4+, and SO42- and organics. Analogous particle systems are often studied in laboratory settings by atomizing and drying particles from a solution. Here, we present evidence that such laboratory studies may be consistently biased in that they neglect losses of solutes to the gas phase. We present experimental evidence from a hygroscopic tandem differential mobility analyzer and an aerosol mass spectrometer, further supported by thermodynamic modeling. We show that, at normally prevailing laboratory aerosol mass concentrations, for mixtures of NaCl and (NH4)2SO4, a significant portion of the Cl- and NH4+ ions are lost to the gas phase, in some cases, leaving mainly Na2SO4 in the dry particles. Not considering losses of solutes to the gas phase during experimental studies will likely result in misinterpretation of the data. One example of such data is that from particle water uptake experiments. This may bias the explanatory models constructed from the data and introduce errors inte predictions made by air quality or climate models.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Contaminantes Atmosféricos
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Environ Sci Technol
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Suecia