Hygroscopicity of aerosol particles at low temperatures. 1. New low-temperature H-TDMA instrument: Setup and first applications

Abstract

A hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (H-TDMA) is described that allows a fast and accurate determination of the water uptake by submicrometer aerosol particles at temperatures below 0 °C. To avoid volatilization of semivolatile particles, the humidification works without heating the gas stream, and the gas-phase composition is not changed during the analysis. The applied scanning mobility analysis allows a fast and accurate measurement of the humidogram, but care has to be taken with too high scanning velocities leading to artifacts in the particle size measurement. During a field campaign at a high-alpine site (Jungfraujoch, 3580 m above sea level), humidograms of free tropospheric particles were measured at T = -10 °C. The hygroscopic growth of these particles was characterized by monomodal growth distributions, which means that in the observed size range (dry particle diameters (Do) = 50-250 nm) the free tropospheric aerosol was to a large extent internally mixed. No distinct deliquescence was observed, indicating that the multicomponent aerosol particles are present in a liquid state even at a low relative humidity (RH) < 10%. At RH 85%, average hygroscopic growth factors of 1.44, 1.49, and 1.53 were measured for Do = 50, 100, and 250 nm. The estimated soluble volume fraction of the particles in the observed size range was found to be 0.79, 0.86, and 0.91, respectively.