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Atmospheric nanoparticles formed from heterogeneous reactions of organics

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 238–242 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Atmospheric aerosols directly and indirectly affect the radiative balance of the Earth’s atmosphere1. Nanoparticles are a key component of atmospheric aerosols, growing rapidly under ambient conditions2,3,4. Organic species are thought to lead to the growth of nanoparticles smaller than 20 nm (refs 5, 6), but the identity of these species and the underlying chemical mechanisms remain elusive. Here we exposed nanoparticles to a range of organic vapours—2,4-hexadienal, glyoxal and trimethylamine—and monitored particle size to determine the contribution of organic vapours to nanoparticle growth. We show that organic species enhance the growth of nanoparticles, producing non-volatile oligomers, polymers and alkylaminium sulphates in the particle phase. Nanoparticle growth increased with relative humidity in the presence of glyoxal and trimethylamine, but decreased at higher relative humidities in the presence of 2,4-hexadienal, dependent on the reaction mechanism of the organic species involved. Oligomerization and polymerization were largely suppressed in particles smaller than 4 nm and nanoparticle growth increased with particle size. Our findings help to explain the presence of previously measured, but unidentified non-volatile compounds in atmospheric nanoparticles and to improve model simulations of new particle formation.

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Figure 1: Size distributions of nanoparticles.
Figure 2: Particle growth factor (Dp/Dp*) on exposure to organic vapours.
Figure 3: TD-ID-CIMS analysis of particle composition after exposure to 2,4-hexadienal and trimethylamine vapours.
Figure 4: TD-ID-CIMS analysis of particle composition after exposure to glyoxal vapour.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Robert A. Welch Foundation (Grant A-1417) and the US National Science Foundation (AGS-0938352 and CBET-0932705). R.Z. acknowledges further support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant (40728006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Sciences and Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA

    Lin Wang, Alexei F. Khalizov, Jun Zheng, Wen Xu, Yan Ma, Vinita Lal & Renyi Zhang

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

    Yan Ma

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  1. Lin Wang
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  2. Alexei F. Khalizov
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  3. Jun Zheng
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  4. Wen Xu
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Contributions

R.Z. and L.W. wrote the paper. R.Z., L.W. and A.F.K. designed the study. All seven authors performed the experiments. R.Z., L.W. and A.F.K. analysed the data.

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Correspondence to Renyi Zhang.

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Wang, L., Khalizov, A., Zheng, J. et al. Atmospheric nanoparticles formed from heterogeneous reactions of organics. Nature Geosci 3, 238–242 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo778

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