Hygroscopicity of Water-Soluble Organic Compounds in Atmospheric Aerosols:  Amino Acids and Biomass Burning Derived Organic Species

Abstract

Amino acids and organic species derived from biomass burning can potentially affect the hygroscopicity and cloud condensation activities of aerosols. The hygroscopicity of seven amino acids (glycine, alanine, serine, glutamine, threonine, arginine, and asparagine) and three organic species most commonly detected in biomass burning aerosols (levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan) were measured using an electrodynamic balance. Crystallization was observed in the glycine, alanine, serine, glutamine, and threonine particles upon evaporation of water, while no phase transition was observed in the arginine and asparagine particles even at 5% relative humidity (RH). Water activity data from these aqueous amino acid particles, except arginine and asparagine, was used to revise the interaction parameters in UNIQUAC functional group activity coefficients to give predictions to within 15% of the measurements. Levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan particles did not crystallize nor did they deliquesce. They existed as highly concentrated liquid droplets at low RH, suggesting that biomass burning aerosols retain water at low RH. In addition, these particles follow a very similar pattern in hygroscopic growth. A generalized growth law (Gf = (1 - RH/100)-0.095) is proposed for levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan particles.

Amorphous and crystalline aerosol particles interacting with water vapor: conceptual framework and experimental evidence for restructuring, phase transitions and kinetic limitations

“…Similar behaviour has been observed for certain organic compounds such as carbohydrates, dicarboxylic acids and multifunctional compounds: levoglucosan (Mochida and Kawamura, 2004;Chan et al, 2005;, mannosan and galactosan (Chan et al, 2005), maleic and malonic acid Choi and Chan, 2002a;Brooks et al, 2003;, malic and citric acid Choi and Chan, 2002a), fulvic acids and humic-like substances (HULIS, Gysel et al, 2004;Dinar at al., 2007), and protein macromolecules (Mikhailov et al, 2004).…”

“…The hygroscopic properties of levoglucosan particles have been investigated in several earlier studies with H-TDMA (Mochida and Kawamura, 2004;Koehler et al, 2006; and electrodynamic balance methods (Chan et al, 2005). Mochida and Kawamura (2004) and Chan et al (2005) performed hydration and dehydration experiments, while Koehler et al (2006) and performed only hydration experiments.…”

Mass transfer effects in hygroscopic measurements of aerosol particles

“…The equilibrium time of a few seconds is adequate for equilibrium particle growth/evaporation in typical inorganic salt particles such as NaCl and (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 , but it may not be adequate for other particles such as those coated with organic layers. Chan and coworkers have found significant mass transfer effects in EDB hygroscopicity measurements for some inorganic salt particles such as MgSO 4 (Ha and Chan, 1999;Zhang and Chan, 2000) and organic particles such as sodium pyruvate, arginine, and asparagine Chan et al, 2005). Although particles studied in the EDB are 2 orders of magnitude larger and would take a longer equilibration time than those studied in the TDMA, these results suggest the possibility that longer equilibrium time scales may be required for TDMA measurements of these single or multicomponent particles, as discussed for glutaric acid particles earlier.…”

Water uptake by fresh Indonesian peat burning particles is limited by water-soluble organic matter

“…Functional-group analysis of segregated organic matter has also been demonstrated as a strong tool to characterize complex mixture of organic compounds (Chen et al, 2016). For instance, chemical characteristics of water-soluble organic matter (WSOM) have been intensively investigated, revealing that WSOM predominantly consists of levoglucosan-like species, carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, aliphatic alcohols, and polyacids (Decesari et al, 2000;Peng et al, 2001;Suzuki et al, 2001;MayolBracero et al, 2002;Chan et al, 2005;Psichoudaki and Pandis, 2013). Recently, the important roles of functional groups in water uptake properties were also investigated by both theoretical and experimental approaches (Suda et al, 2014;Petters et al, 2016).…”