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Mass spectrometric study of aged benzene secondary organic aerosol in the presence of dry ammonium sulfate

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Abstract

Inorganic seed particles have relatively large surface area, and play an important role in the formation and aging of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). The effects of dry (NH4)2SO4 which is the most commonly found in urban atmosphere on the aged benzene SOA were qualitatively studied utilizing aerosol laser time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ALTOFMS) coupled with Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering algorithm in this study. Experimental results indicated that nitrophenol, oxocarboxylic acid, epoxide products are the predominant components in the aged benzene SOA in the presence of low concentration (about 10 μg m−3) of dry (NH4)2SO4. These aged products are the same as the previously obtained aged benzene SOA without (NH4)2SO4 seed aerosol, indicating that low concentration of dry (NH4)2SO4 acts just as the nucleation or condensation center of the SOA, and do not affect the chemical composition of SOA. However, 1 H-imidazole, 1 H-imidazole-2-carbaldehyde, hydrated 1 H-imidazole-2-carbaldehyde, 2,2′-biimidazole, hydrated N-glyoxal substituted 1 H-imidazole, N-glyoxal substituted hydrated 1 H-imidazole-2- carbaldehyde, hydrated mono glyoxal substituted hydrated 1 H-imidazole-2-carboxaldehyde, mono glyoxal substituted 2,2-biimidazole and hydrated glyoxal dimer substituted imidazole which are formed from ammonium ion reaction with glyoxal are the major particulate products in the aged benzene SOA in the presence of high concentration (about 100 μg m−3) of dry (NH4)2SO4. The retention of water on the dry (NH4)2SO4 particles creates ammonium ion, which can promote the formation of high-molecular-weight (HMW) products through multiphase reactions such as hydration and polymerization of aldehydes form from OH-initiated oxidation of benzene.

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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 the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41575118, 41305109, 21502086, 41575126), the Outstanding Youth Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (No. 2015J06009) and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (No.2015 J05028). 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, Jiahui Zhang & Shunyou Cai

  2. Fujian Province Key Laboratory of Modern Analytical Science and Separation Technology, Zhangzhou, 363000, China

    Mingqiang Huang & Shunyou Cai

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

    Mingqiang Huang & Yingmin Liao

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

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

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  1. Mingqiang Huang
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Huang, M., Zhang, J., Cai, S. et al. Mass spectrometric study of aged benzene secondary organic aerosol in the presence of dry ammonium sulfate. J Atmos Chem 73, 329–344 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10874-016-9328-6

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