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Chemical analysis of aged benzene secondary organic aerosol using aerosol laser time-of-flight mass spectrometer

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Abstract

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from the photooxidation of aromatic compounds is a very complex mixture containing products with a different chemical nature that are dependent on aging processes. Aging of SOA particles formed from OH-initiated oxidation of benzene was investigated in a home-made smog chamber in this study. The chemical composition of aged benzene SOA particles were measured using aerosol laser time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ALTOFMS) coupled with Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering algorithm. Experimental results showed that nitrophenol, dinitrophenol, nitrocatechol, dinitrocatechol, 6-oxo-2,4-hexadienoic acid, 2,4-hexadiendioic acid, 2,3-dihydroxy-6-oxo-4-hexenoic acid, 2,3-epoxy-4-hexendioic acid, 2,3-epoxy-4,5-dihydroxy-hexanedioic acid and high-molecular-weight (HMW) components were the predominant products in the aged particles. Compared to offline method such as liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) measurement, the real-time ALTOFMS detection approach coupled with the FCM data processing algorithm can make cluster analysis of SOA successfully and provide more information of products. The present results also indicate that benzene SOA aging proceeds through the oxidation of the internal double bond of ring-opened products, phenolic compounds, and acid-catalyzed heterogeneous reactions of carbonyl products. The possible reaction mechanisms leading to these aged products were also discussed and proposed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr. Michael Nusbaum from Department of English, Xiamen University, Tan Kah Kee College for help with the English language. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41305109), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (No. 2012J05079), and the program for New Century Excellent Talents of Minnan Normal University (No. MX13001). Also, the authors express our gratitude to the referees for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry & Environment, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou, 363000, China

    Mingqiang Huang, Yuehong Lin & Xianying Huang

  2. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tan Kah Kee College, Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, 363105, China

    Mingqiang Huang & Xingqiang Liu

  3. Laboratory of Atmospheric Physico-Chemistry, Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China

    Changjin Hu, Xuejun Gu, Weixiong Zhao, Li Fang & Weijun Zhang

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  1. Mingqiang Huang
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  2. Yuehong Lin
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  3. Xianying Huang
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  4. Xingqiang Liu
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  8. Li Fang
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  9. Weijun Zhang
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Correspondence to Weijun Zhang.

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Huang, M., Lin, Y., Huang, X. et al. Chemical analysis of aged benzene secondary organic aerosol using aerosol laser time-of-flight mass spectrometer. J Atmos Chem 71, 213–224 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-014-9291-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-014-9291-z

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