Laboratory Experiments and Modeling for Interpreting Field Studies of Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation Using an Oxidation Flow Reactor
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
This grant was originally funded for deployment of a suite of aerosol instrumentation by our group in collaboration with other research groups and DOE/ARM to the Ganges Valley in India (GVAX) to study aerosols sources and processing. Much of the first year of this grant was focused on preparations for GVAX. That campaign was cancelled due to political reasons and with the consultation with our program manager, the research of this grant was refocused to study the applications of oxidation flow reactors (OFRs) for investigating secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation and organic aerosol (OA) processing in the field and laboratory through a series of laboratory and modeling studies. We developed a gas-phase photochemical model of an OFR which was used to 1) explore the sensitivities of key output variables (e.g., OH exposure, O3, HO2/OH) to controlling factors (e.g., water vapor, external reactivity, UV irradiation), 2) develop simplified OH exposure estimation equations, 3) investigate under what conditions non-OH chemistry may be important, and 4) help guide design of future experiments to avoid conditions with undesired chemistry for a wide range of conditions applicable to the ambient, laboratory, and source studies. Uncertainties in the model were quantified and modeled OH exposure was compared to tracer decay measurements of OH exposure in the lab and field. Laboratory studies using OFRs were conducted to explore aerosol yields and composition from anthropogenic and biogenic VOC as well as crude oil evaporates. Various aspects of the modeling and laboratory results and tools were applied to interpretation of ambient and source measurements using OFR. Additionally, novel measurement methods were used to study gas/particle partitioning. The research conducted was highly successful and details of the key results are summarized in this report through narrative text, figures, and a complete list of publications acknowledging this grant.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0006035
- OSTI ID:
- 1238269
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/SC0006035-1
- Resource Relation:
- Related Information: See Attached PDF with Full Final Report
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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