Hygroscopicity and cloud condensation nucleation activities of hydroxyalkylsulfonates

Chao Peng; Kotiba A Malek; Dewansh Rastogi; Yuqing Zhang; Weigang Wang; Xiang Ding; Akua A Asa-Awuku; Xinming Wang; Mingjin Tang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154767

Hygroscopicity and cloud condensation nucleation activities of hydroxyalkylsulfonates

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jul 15:830:154767. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154767. Epub 2022 Mar 26.

Authors

Chao Peng¹, Kotiba A Malek², Dewansh Rastogi², Yuqing Zhang¹, Weigang Wang³, Xiang Ding¹, Akua A Asa-Awuku⁴, Xinming Wang¹, Mingjin Tang⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Protection and Resources Utilization and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Environmental Pollution and Control, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China.
² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
³ State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Protection and Resources Utilization and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Environmental Pollution and Control, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Deep Earth Science, Guangzhou 510640, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: mingjintang@gig.ac.cn.

PMID: 35346709
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154767

Abstract

Hydroxyalkylsulfonates may contribute significantly to atmospheric particles; however, their hygroscopic properties and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activities remain unknown. In this study, three complementary techniques were utilized to examine the hygroscopicity of sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate (NaHMS), sodium 2-hydroxyethylsulfonate (NaHES), and ammonium 2-hydroxyethylsulfonate (NH₄HES) under subsaturated and supersaturated environments. The mass changes in the three hydroxyalkylsulfonates at different relative humidities at 25 °C were examined by a vapor sorption analyzer, and the mass growth factors were measured to be 3.25 ± 0.01 for NaHMS, 3.32 ± 0.02 for NaHES, and 3.34 ± 0.04 for NH₄HES at 90% RH. Their hygroscopic growth was investigated by a humidity tandem differential mobility analyzer, and hygroscopic growth factors were 1.78 ± 0.02 for NaHMS, 1.71 ± 0.02 for NaHES, and 1.68 ± 0.03 for NH₄HES at 90% RH. Furthermore, the CCN activities of NaHMS, NaHES, and NH₄HES were explored, and their single hygroscopicity parameters (κ_ccn) were measured to be 0.649 ± 0.097 for NaHMS, 0.559 ± 0.069 for NaHES, and 0.434 ± 0.073 for NH₄HES. In addition, the hygroscopic growth and CCN activities of binary mixtures of ammonium sulfate with one of the three hydroxyalkylsulfonates were also examined.

Keywords: Aerosol particles; Aerosol-water interaction; CCN; H-TDMA; Hydroxymethanesulfonate.

MeSH terms

Aerosols
Alkanesulfonates / chemistry*
Ammonium Sulfate
Gases*
Humidity
Wettability

Substances

Aerosols
Alkanesulfonates
Gases
Ammonium Sulfate