Sean H. Kessler

Carbon oxidation state as a metric for describing the chemistry of atmospheric organic aerosol

A detailed understanding of the sources, transformations and fates of organic species in the environment is crucial because of the central roles that they play in human health, biogeochemical cycles and the Earths climate. However, such an understanding is hindered by the immense chemical complexity of environmental mixtures of organics; for example, atmospheric organic aerosol consists of at least thousands of individual compounds, all of which likely evolve chemically over their atmospheric lifetimes. Here, we demonstrate the utility of describing organic aerosol (and other complex organic mixtures) in terms of average carbon oxidation state, a quantity that always increases with oxidation, and is readily measured using state-of-the-art analytical techniques. Field and laboratory measurements of the average carbon oxidation state, using several such techniques, constrain the chemical properties of the organics and demonstrate that the formation and evolution of organic aerosol involves simultaneous changes to both carbon oxidation state and carbon number.

Chemical Sinks of Organic Aerosol: Kinetics and Products of the Heterogeneous Oxidation of Erythritol and Levoglucosan

The heterogeneous oxidation of pure erythritol (C(4)H(10)O(4)) and levoglucosan (C(6)H(10)O(5)) particles was studied in order to evaluate the effects of atmospheric aging on the mass and chemical composition of atmospheric organic aerosol. In contrast to what is generally observed for the heterogeneous oxidation of reduced organics, substantial volatilization is observed in both systems. However, the ratio of the decrease in particle mass to the decrease in the concentration of the parent species is about three times higher for erythritol than for levoglucosan, indicating that details of chemical structure (such as carbon number, cyclic moieties, and oxygen-containing functional groups) play a governing role in the importance of volatilization reactions. The kinetics of the reaction indicate that while both compounds react at approximately the same rate, reactions of their oxidation products appear to be slowed substantially. Estimates of volatilities of organic species based on elemental composition measurements suggest that the heterogeneous oxidation of oxygenated organics may be an important loss mechanism of organic aerosol.

Heterogeneous Oxidation of Atmospheric Organic Aerosol: Kinetics of Changes to the Amount and Oxidation State of Particle-Phase Organic Carbon

Atmospheric oxidation reactions are known to affect the chemical composition of organic aerosol (OA) particles over timescales of several days, but the details of such oxidative aging reactions are poorly understood. In this study we examine the rates and products of a key class of aging reaction, the heterogeneous oxidation of particle-phase organic species by the gas-phase hydroxyl radical (OH). We compile and reanalyze a number of previous studies from our laboratories involving the oxidation of single-component organic particles. All kinetic and product data are described on a common basis, enabling a straightforward comparison among different chemical systems and experimental conditions. Oxidation chemistry is described in terms of changes to key ensemble properties of the OA, rather than to its detailed molecular composition, focusing on two quantities in particular, the amount and the oxidation state of the particle-phase carbon. Heterogeneous oxidation increases the oxidation state of particulate carbon, with the rate of increase determined by the detailed chemical mechanism. At the same time, the amount of particle-phase carbon decreases with oxidation, due to fragmentation (C-C scission) reactions that form small, volatile products that escape to the gas phase. In contrast to the oxidation state increase, the rate of carbon loss is nearly uniform among most systems studied. Extrapolation of these results to atmospheric conditions indicates that heterogeneous oxidation can have a substantial effect on the amount and composition of atmospheric OA over timescales of several days, a prediction that is broadly in line with available measurements of OA evolution over such long timescales. In particular, 3-13% of particle-phase carbon is lost to the gas phase after one week of heterogeneous oxidation. Our results indicate that oxidative aging represents an important sink for particulate organic carbon, and more generally that fragmentation reactions play a major role in the lifecycle of atmospheric OA.

Influence of Molecular Structure and Chemical Functionality on the Heterogeneous OH-Initiated Oxidation of Unsaturated Organic Particles

The kinetics and products of the heterogeneous OH-initiated oxidation of squalene (C30H50, a branched alkene with 6 C═C double bonds) particles are measured. These results are compared to previous measurements of the OH-initiated oxidation of linoleic acid (C18H32O2, a linear carboxylic acid with 2 C═C double bonds) particles to understand how molecular structure and chemical functionality influence reaction rates and mechanisms. In a 10% mixture of O2 in N2 in the flow reactor, the effective uptake coefficients (γeff) for squalene and linoleic acid are larger than unity, providing clear evidence for particle-phase secondary chain chemistry. γeff for squalene is 2.34 ± 0.07, which is smaller than γeff for linoleic acid (3.75 ± 0.18) despite the larger number of C═C double bonds in squalene. γeff for squalene increases with [O2] in the reactor, whereas γeff for linoleic acid decreases with increasing [O2]. This suggests that the chain cycling mechanism in these two systems is different since O2 promotes chain propagation in the OH + squalene reaction but promotes chain termination in the OH + linoleic acid reaction. Elemental analysis of squalene aerosol shows that an average of 1.06 ± 0.12 O atoms are added per reactive loss of squalene prior to the onset of particle volatilization. O2 promotes particle volatilization in the OH + squalene reaction, suggesting that fragmentation reactions are important when O2 is present in the OH oxidation of branched unsaturated organic aerosol. In contrast, O2 does not influence the rate of particle volatilization in the OH + linoleic acid reaction. This indicates that O2 does not alter the relative importance of fragmentation reactions in the OH oxidation of linear unsaturated organic aerosol.

Formation of Secondary Organic Aerosol from the Direct Photolytic Generation of Organic Radicals

The immense complexity inherent in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA)-due primarily to the large number of oxidation steps and reaction pathways involved-has limited the detailed understanding of its underlying chemistry. As a means of simplifying such complexity, here we demonstrate the formation of SOA through the photolysis of gas-phase alkyl iodides, which generates organic peroxy radicals of known structure. In contrast to standard OH-initiated oxidation experiments, photolytically initiated oxidation forms a limited number of products via a single reactive step. As is typical for SOA, the yields of aerosol generated from the photolysis of alkyl iodides depend on aerosol loading, indicating the semivolatile nature of the particulate species. However, the aerosol was observed to be higher in volatility and less oxidized than in previous multigenerational studies of alkane oxidation, suggesting that additional oxidative steps are necessary to produce oxidized semivolatile material in the atmosphere. Despite the relative simplicity of this chemical system, the SOA mass spectra are still quite complex, underscoring the wide range of products present in SOA.