Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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2007
10.5194/acpd-7-2991-2007
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/2991/2007/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/2991/2007/acpd-7-2991-2007.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/2991/2007/acpd-7-2991-2007.pdf
2991
3012
2007-02-26
Investigation of the formaldehyde differential absorption cross section at high and low spectral resolution in the simulation chamber SAPHIR
T. Brauers
th.brauers@fz-juelich.de
J. Bossmeyer
H.-P. Dorn
E. Schlosser
R. Tillmann
R. Wegener
A. Wahner
Institut für Chemie und Dynamik der Geosphäre (ICG-II: Troposphäre), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
The results from a simulation chamber study on the formaldehyde (HCHO)
absorption cross section in the UV spectral region are presented. We
performed 5 experiments at ambient HCHO concentrations with
simultaneous measurements of two DOAS instruments in the atmosphere
simulation chamber SAPHIR in Jülich. The two instruments differ in
their spectral resolution, one working at 0.2 nm (broad-band,
BB-DOAS), the other at 2.7 pm (high-resolution, HR-DOAS). Both
instruments use dedicated multi reflection cells to achieve long light
path lengths of 960 m and 2240 m, respectively, inside the chamber.
<br></br>
During three experiments HCHO was injected into the clean chamber by
thermolysis of well defined amounts of para-formaldehyde reaching
mixing rations of 40 ppbV at maximum. The HCHO concentration
calculated from the injection and the chamber volume agrees with the
BB-DOAS measured value when the absorption cross section
of Meller and Moortgat (2000) was used for data evaluation. In two further
experiments we produced HCHO <it>in-situ</it> from the ozone + ethene
reaction which was intended to provide an independent way of HCHO
calibration through the measurements of ozone and ethene. However, we
found an unexpected deviation from the current understanding of the
ozone + ethene reaction when CO was added to suppress possible
oxidation of ethene by OH radicals. The reaction of the Criegee
intermediate with CO could to be 240 times slower than currently
assumed.
<br></br>
Based on the BB-DOAS measurements we could deduce a
high-resolution cross section for HCHO which was not measured
directly so far.
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