Abstract
Abstract. This study describes the design of the Manchester Aerosol Chamber (MAC), initially developed in 2005 and presents for the first time its comprehensive characterisation. The MAC is designed to investigate multi-phase chemistry and the evolution of aerosol physico-chemical properties from the real-world emissions (e.g. diesel engine, plants) or of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) produced from pure volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Additionally, the generated aerosol particles in the MAC can be transferred to the Manchester Ice Cloud Chamber (MICC), which enables investigation of cloud formation in warm, mixed-phase, and fully glaciated conditions (with temperature, T, as low as −55 ∘C). The MAC is an 18 m3 fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) Teflon chamber with the potential to conduct experiments at controlled temperature (15–35 ∘C) and relative humidity (RH; 25 %–80 %) under simulated solar radiation or dark conditions. Detailed characterisations were conducted at common experimental conditions (25 ∘C, 50 % RH) for actinometry and determination of background contamination, wall losses of gases (NO2, O3, and selected VOCs), aerosol particles at different sizes, chamber wall reactivity, and aerosol formation. In addition, the influences of chamber contamination on the wall loss rate of gases and particles and the photolysis of NO2 were estimated.
Highlights
Atmospheric aerosols have significant effects on air quality, regional to global climate, and human health (Lohmann and Feichter, 2005; Pope et al, 2002; Katsouyanni et al, 1997)
Additional instruments, such as a gas chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC–MS), and a proton transfer reaction (PTR) ionisation scheme were added to the Manchester Aerosol Chamber (MAC) as part of collaborative work to measure volatile organic compounds (VOCs) concentrations (Alfarra et al, 2013; Wyche et al, 2014, 2015)
Considering that the correction of the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mass and particle yield calculations are strongly dependent on the measured particle loss rates in characterisation experiments, at least for the MAC, it is recommended that more frequent particle and gas loss characterisation experiments be conducted to enable more reliable corrections
Summary
Atmospheric aerosols have significant effects on air quality, regional to global climate, and human health (Lohmann and Feichter, 2005; Pope et al, 2002; Katsouyanni et al, 1997). A simulation chamber is a controlled system to elucidate processes that occur in the real atmosphere (Barnes and Rudzinski, 2006), gas-phase reactions and chemical pathways (Carter and Lurmann, 1991; Seakins, 2010; Atkinson et al, 1992; Paulot et al, 2009; Surratt et al, 2010; Ehn et al, 2012; Bianchi et al, 2019, Thornton et al, 2020), secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production (Hallquist et al, 2009; Carlton et al, 2009; Mcfiggans et al, 2019), new particle formation (Smith, 2016; Wang et al, 2020; Wagner et al, 2017; Dunne et al, 2016), cloud processes (Wang et al, 2011; Frey et al, 2018; Wagner et al, 2006), transformations and properties of real-world emissions A detailed description of the coupling between the facilities and its use can be found in Connolly et al (2012) and Frey et al (2018) and is not discussed here
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