Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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2008
10.5194/acpd-8-11363-2008
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/11363/2008/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/11363/2008/acpd-8-11363-2008.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/11363/2008/acpd-8-11363-2008.pdf
11363
11394
2008-06-10
Aerosol dynamics simulations on the connection of sulphuric acid and new particle formation
S.-L. Sihto
sanna-liisa.sihto@helsinki.fi
H. Vuollekoski
J. Leppä
I. Riipinen
V.-M. Kerminen
H. Korhonen
K. E. J. Lehtinen
M. Boy
M. Kulmala
Univ. of Helsinki, Dept. of Physics, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Climate and Global Change, P.O. Box 503, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland
University of Kuopio, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 1627, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio Unit, P.O. Box 1627, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
We have performed a series of simulations with an aerosol dynamics box model
to study the connection between new particle formation and sulphuric acid
concentration. For nucleation either activation mechanism with a linear
dependence on the sulphuric acid concentration or ternary
H<sub>2</sub>O-H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub>-NH<sub>3</sub> nucleation was assumed. We investigated
the factors that affect the sulphuric acid dependence during the early
stages of particle growth, and tried to find conditions which would yield
the linear dependence between the particle number concentration at 3–6 nm
and sulphuric acid, as observed in field experiments. The simulations showed
that the correlation with sulphuric acid may change during the growth from
nucleation size to 3–6 nm size range, the main reason being the size
dependent growth rate between 1 and 3 nm. In addition, the assumed size for
the nucleated clusters had a crucial impact on the sulphuric acid dependence
at 3 nm. The simulations yielded a linear dependence between the particle
number concentration at 3 nm and sulphuric acid, when a low saturation
vapour pressure for the condensable organic vapour was assumed, or when
nucleation took place at ~2 nm instead of ~1 nm. Comparison of
results with activation and ternary nucleation showed that ternary
nucleation cannot explain the experimentally observed linear or square
dependence on sulphuric acid.
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