Low temperature growth of sub 10 nm particles by ammonium nitrate condensation

Neil M. Donahue; Mao Xiao; Ruby Marten; Mingyi Wang; Weimeng Kong; Meredith Schervish; Qing Ye; Victoria Hofbauer; Lubna Dada; Jonathan Duplissy; Henning Finkenzeller; Hamish Gordon; Jasper Kirkby; Houssni Lamkaddam; Vladimir Makhmutov; Maxim Philippov; Birte Rörup; Rainer Volkamer; Dongyu Wang; Stefan K. Weber; Richard C. Flagan; Dominik Stolzenburg; Imad El Hadad

doi:10.1039/D4EA00117F

Low temperature growth of sub 10 nm particles by ammonium nitrate condensation

Neil M. Donahue,

*^a Mao Xiao,^b Ruby Marten,

^b Mingyi Wang,^ad Weimeng Kong,^h Meredith Schervish,

^ac Qing Ye,^a Victoria Hofbauer,^a Lubna Dada,

^b Jonathan Duplissy,

^g Henning Finkenzeller,^g Hamish Gordon,

^a Jasper Kirkby,

^fj Houssni Lamkaddam,^b Vladimir Makhmutov,^k Maxim Philippov,

^k Birte Rörup,

^g Rainer Volkamer,ⁱ Dongyu Wang,^b Stefan K. Weber,^j Richard C. Flagan,^h Dominik Stolzenburg^e and Imad El Hadad

^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Chemistry, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
E-mail: nmd@andrew.cmu.edu
Tel: +1 412 268-4415

^b Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland

^c University of California, Irvine Department of Chemistry, Irvine, CA, USA

^d University of Chicago Department of the Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, IL, USA

^e Technical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

^f Institute, for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Altenhöferallee 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

^g Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research/Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland

^h Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

ⁱ Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80305, USA

^j CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

^k P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991 Moscow, Russia

Abstract

Co-condensation of nitric acid and ammonia vapors to form ammonium nitrate transforms from a fully semi-volatile behavior when it is relatively warm (273 K and above, typical of the seasonal planetary boundary layer) into effectively non-volatile and irreversible uptake for the limiting vapor when it is cold (well below 273 K, typical of the upper troposphere and occasionally the wintertime boundary layer). This causes the system to switch in character from the one governed by semi-volatile equilibrium (how it is usually portrayed) to the one governed by irreversible reactive uptake to even the smallest particles. Uptake involves an activation diameter, which can be as small as 1 nm for typical vapor concentrations, and subsequent growth rates can be very high, exceeding 1000 nm h⁻¹. In addition to this somewhat surprising behavior, the system provides an exemplary case for semi-volatile reactive uptake within the context of volatility and saturation ratios.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres

Low temperature growth of sub 10 nm particles by ammonium nitrate condensation

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Low temperature growth of sub 10 nm particles by ammonium nitrate condensation

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