Product study of oleic acid ozonolysis as function of humidity

Abstract

The heterogeneous reaction of ozone with oleic acid (OA) aerosol particles was studied as function of humidity and reaction time in an aerosol flow reactor using an off-line gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) technique. We report quantitative yields of the major C9 ozonolysis products in both gas and condensed phases and the effect of relative humidity on the product distribution. The measurements were carried out with OA aerosol particles at room temperature. The results indicate that the product yields are increasing with increasing relative humidity during the reaction. Nonanal (NN) was detected as the major gas-phase product (55.6 ± 2.3%), with 94.5 ± 2.4% of the NN yield in the gas, and 5.5 ± 2.7% in the particulate phase, whereas nonanoic, oxononanoic and azelaic acids were detected exclusively in the particulate phase. Using UV-spectrometry, we observed that peroxides make up the largest fraction of products, about half of the product aerosol mass, and their concentration decreased with increasing humidity.