Publication Date:
2016-05-26
Description:
Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles Nature 533, 7604 (2016). doi:10.1038/nature17953 Authors: Jasper Kirkby, Jonathan Duplissy, Kamalika Sengupta, Carla Frege, Hamish Gordon, Christina Williamson, Martin Heinritzi, Mario Simon, Chao Yan, João Almeida, Jasmin Tröstl, Tuomo Nieminen, Ismael K. Ortega, Robert Wagner, Alexey Adamov, Antonio Amorim, Anne-Kathrin Bernhammer, Federico Bianchi, Martin Breitenlechner, Sophia Brilke, Xuemeng Chen, Jill Craven, Antonio Dias, Sebastian Ehrhart, Richard C. Flagan, Alessandro Franchin, Claudia Fuchs, Roberto Guida, Jani Hakala, Christopher R. Hoyle, Tuija Jokinen, Heikki Junninen, Juha Kangasluoma, Jaeseok Kim, Manuel Krapf, Andreas Kürten, Ari Laaksonen, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Vladimir Makhmutov, Serge Mathot, Ugo Molteni, Antti Onnela, Otso Peräkylä, Felix Piel, Tuukka Petäjä, Arnaud P. Praplan, Kirsty Pringle, Alexandru Rap, Nigel A. D. Richards, Ilona Riipinen, Matti P. Rissanen, Linda Rondo, Nina Sarnela, Siegfried Schobesberger, Catherine E. Scott, John H. Seinfeld, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Frank Stratmann, Antonio Tomé, Annele Virtanen, Alexander L. Vogel, Andrea C. Wagner, Paul E. Wagner, Ernest Weingartner, Daniela Wimmer, Paul M. Winkler, Penglin Ye, Xuan Zhang, Armin Hansel, Josef Dommen, Neil M. Donahue, Douglas R. Worsnop, Urs Baltensperger, Markku Kulmala, Kenneth S. Carslaw & Joachim Curtius Atmospheric aerosols and their effect on clouds are thought to be important for anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate, yet remain poorly understood. Globally, around half of cloud condensation nuclei originate from nucleation of atmospheric vapours. It is thought that sulfuric acid is essential to initiate most particle formation in the atmosphere, and that ions have a relatively minor role. Some laboratory studies, however, have reported organic particle formation without the intentional addition of sulfuric acid, although contamination could not be excluded. Here we present evidence for the formation of aerosol particles from highly oxidized biogenic vapours in the absence of sulfuric acid in a large chamber under atmospheric conditions. The highly oxygenated molecules (HOMs) are produced by ozonolysis of α-pinene. We find that ions from Galactic cosmic rays increase the nucleation rate by one to two orders of magnitude compared with neutral nucleation. Our experimental findings are supported by quantum chemical calculations of the cluster binding energies of representative HOMs. Ion-induced nucleation of pure organic particles constitutes a potentially widespread source of aerosol particles in terrestrial environments with low sulfuric acid pollution.
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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