2018
DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.8b00229
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Fractal-like Tar Ball Aggregates from Wildfire Smoke

Abstract: Tar balls are atmospheric particles that are abundant in slightly aged biomass burning smoke and have a significant, but highly uncertain, role in Earth’s radiative balance. Tar balls are typically detected using electron microscopy and generally, they are observed as individual spheres. Here, we report new observations of a significant fraction of tar ball aggregates (∼27% by number) from samples collected in a plume of the Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire in New Mexico. The structure of these aggregates is frac… Show more

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Cited by 36 publications
(29 citation statements)
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“…Nitroaromatics are a strongly absorbing class of BrC chromophores that are formed from the reaction of aromatics with NO x in plumes (Harrison et al, 2005). This class of compounds is represented in Table 1 with nitropyrogallol (2), nitrocatechol (6), hydroxynitroguaiacol (7), and methyl nitrocatechol (10).…”
Section: Condensed-phase Photochemistry Experimentsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Nitroaromatics are a strongly absorbing class of BrC chromophores that are formed from the reaction of aromatics with NO x in plumes (Harrison et al, 2005). This class of compounds is represented in Table 1 with nitropyrogallol (2), nitrocatechol (6), hydroxynitroguaiacol (7), and methyl nitrocatechol (10).…”
Section: Condensed-phase Photochemistry Experimentsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It has previously been suggested that the concentration of tar balls from biomass plumes is approximately 80% of that of the smoke particles emitted from smoldering biomass close to the source [20], and the concentration decreases with distance and dilution. Additionally, tar ball aggregates compose a significant fraction (27%) of samples collected in a plume of the Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire in New Mexico [22]. Therefore, exposure of mice to our conditions for 15 min is an acute exposure equivalent to days or months of exposure to real biomass burning air pollution according to actual measurements in domestic and field environments [38,41].…”
Section: Wood Tar Exposure Chemical Assessmentmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Among biomass burning products, amorphous, carbonaceous particles with typical diameters between ten and hundreds of nanometers have been distinguished as a distinct group; these particles are termed "tar balls" [19][20][21]. Tar balls constitute considerable fraction of biomass burning carbonaceous aerosols in terms of number and mass concentrations [20,22].…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…OA with these characteristics has been hypothesized to be related to “tar balls,” spherical, carbonaceous particles observed by electron microscopy (Chakrabarty et al, 2010; Hand et al, 2005). Recently, tar balls have also been observed in ambient wildfire plumes (Adachi et al, 2019; Girotto et al, 2018). Optical attribution of red absorption to BrC is complicated because its mass is not quantified separately from BC by laser‐induced incandescence (Adler et al, 2019; Sedlacek et al, 2018) or by thermal‐optical experiments (Adler et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2015).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 98%
“…However, field observations show conflicting results with small enhancements in mixed urban‐biogenic regions (Cappa et al, 2012) and aged wildfire plumes (Healy et al, 2015) and moderate enhancements in mixed urban‐rural regimes (Liu et al, 2015). The smaller‐than‐expected absorption enhancement has been attributed to the complex morphology of mixed BC and OA (e.g., partially coated or fractal‐like aggregates) (Cappa et al, 2019; China et al, 2013; Girotto et al, 2018; Liu et al, 2015).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%