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Vertical distribution of Phase State of Aerosol Particles at the Southern Great Plains


EMSL Project ID
60186

Abstract

Organic aerosol particles contribute significantly to the total atmospheric fine particle mass. Depending on the nature of particles (e.g., source, chemical composition) and environmental factors (e.g., ambient parameters and spatial distribution), they are composed of materials exhibiting a wide range of viscosities, transitioning among solid, semisolid or liquid states. Therefore, they have essential but poorly constrained climate effects. Furthermore, the phase state and surface properties of ambient particles affect several atmospheric processes such as cloud condensation, pollution transport, growth rate during gas-particle partitioning, heterogeneous ice nucleation, mixing state of particles, and reactivity reaction rate, making ambient particles have significant climate effects. However, our understanding of the vertical structure of phase state of submicron size ambient particles remains limited due to a lack of observation. This study aims to understand the vertical structure of the phase state and surface properties of particles using field measurements from the ARM site and advanced analytical platforms at EMSL

Project Details

Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2021-12-01
End Date
2022-09-30
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

Fan Mei
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Co-Investigator(s)

Darielle Dexheimer
Institution
Sandia National Laboratory

Related Publications

Niedek, C. R., Mei, F., Zawadowicz, M. A., Zhu, Z., Schmid, B., and Zhang, Q.: Quantitative Chemical Assay of Nanogram-Level PM Using Aerosol Mass Spectrometry: Characterization of Particles Collected from Uncrewed Atmospheric Measurement Platforms, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2022-246, in review, 2022.