Chemistry of Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA) in the Ambient Atmosphere: Molecular Level Analysis of Size Resolved SOA Samples Using High Resolution Mass Spectrometry.
EMSL Project ID
42312
Abstract
The objective of our research is to study the fundamental chemistry in the formation and aging of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in the atmosphere. A large fraction of SOA has been shown to be high molecular weight oligomers which are thought to form through acid catalyzed reactions of photo-chemically processed volatile organic compounds (VOC). The formation of these oligomers is expected to be influenced by the VOCs available, by the amount of atmospheric sulfate and nitrate, and by the length of time available for photo-chemical processing. This project focuses on analyzing the identities of the molecules that comprise these oligomers in size resolved aerosol fractions. Since these high molecular weight oligomers are too large and too polar to be measured by typical GC/MS analysis, gentle ionization followed by high-resolution mass spectrometry will be used.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2010-10-08
End Date
2011-10-09
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members
Related Publications
O'Brien RE, A Laskin, J Laskin, S Liu, R Weber, L Russell, and AH Goldstein. 2013. "Molecular Characterization of Organic Aerosol Using Nanospray Desorption/Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry: CalNex 2010 field study." Atmospheric Environment 68:265-272. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.11.056
O'Brien RE, TB Nguyen, A Laskin, J Laskin, PL Hayes, S Liu, JL Jimenez, LM Russell, S Nizkorodov, and AH Goldstein. 2013. "Probing Molecular Associations of Field-Collected and Laboratory-Generated SOA with Nano-DESI High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry." Journal of Geophysical Research. D. (Atmospheres) 118(2):1042-1051.