Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from the Oxidation of a Mixture of Organic Gases in a Chamber

Abstract

Particles suspended in the air can constitute a potential risk for human health and ecosystems (Pope and Dockery, 2006), specially the finest fraction. Although PM10 (particles with a maximum diameter of 10 m) have been included in European directives for a longer time (Directive 1999/30/EC) air quality objectives for finer particles have been just very recently established. For particles with a mean diameter lower than 2.5 m (PM2.5) the UE Directive 2008/50/EC has set a 25 m/m3 threshold for the annual mean concentration. Although the term aerosol includes the particles and the gas in which they are suspended, commonly both terms, particles and aerosols, refer to particles in the atmosphere. A variety of inorganic and organic chemical compounds can be present in the particulate phase. The organic fraction can account for a 20 90 % of the finest fraction, according to some authors, such as (Kanakidou et al., 2005) and, therefore, the knowledge of this fraction is important to prevent human health risks. Both inorganic and organic aerosols can be directly emitted (primary aerosols) or can be formed in the atmosphere as a consequence of multiple physical and chemical processes (secondary aerosols). The presence of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) is specially relevant in urban areas (Zhang et al., 2007). SOA is mainly produced from the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), whose products present a sufficiently low volatility to partition into the particle phase according to the gas-particle partitioning theory (Odum et al., 1996) and then nucleate and grow to form organic particles. Presently, SOA is thought to be mainly constituted by polymers, formed through particle phase heterogeneous reactions (Kalberer et al., 2004). Other main components include organic nitrates, such as peroxynitrates and peroxyacylnitrates (Camredon et al., 2007; Kroll and Seinfeld, 2008), and carboxylic acids (Barsanti and Pankow, 2006). In spite of the fact that SOA formation has been the focus of many recent studies, some aspects continue to be not well understood. Simulation chambers represent an ideal vehicle to evaluate SOA formation potential by emitting selected VOCs in the presence of an oxidant under controlled conditions. Many studies in chambers have contributed to increase the knowledge of the oxidation processes of individual organic gases or simple mixes of them. VOCs related to anthropogenic emissions, such as substituted aromatics 12