Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation during the Photooxidation of Toluene: NOxDependence of Chemical Composition

Abstract

The photooxidation of toluene is a potential source of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in urban air, but only a small portion of the compounds present in SOA have been identified. In this study, we analyzed the chemical compositions of SOA produced by photoirradiation of the toluene/NOx/air system in laboratory chamber experiments by a combination of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, hybrid high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and iodometry-spectrophotometry. The dependence of the chemical composition on the initial NOx concentration was examined at initial NO concentrations ([NO]0) of 0.2 and 1 ppmv. Fifteen semivolatile products, including aromatic and ring-cleavage compounds, were quantified. However, the quantified products comprised only a small portion ( approximately 1 wt %) of the total aerosol mass. The total SOA yield ( approximately 13 wt %), the ratio of organic peroxides to total SOA mass ( approximately 17 wt %), and the density of SOA ( approximately 1.4 g cm-3) were independent of the NOx level, suggesting that the reaction mechanisms of the formation of major SOA products at [NO]0 = 0.2 and 1 ppmv are essentially the same. The negative-ion mass spectra of SOA samples showed that ion signals attributed to hemiacetal oligomers and/or decomposition products of peroxy hemiacetal oligomers were detected in the range of mass-to-charge ratios (m/z) between 200 and 500. The highest signals were detected at m/z = 155 and 177, and these were tentatively assigned to C7 unsaturated oxacyclic oxocarboxylic acids and C7 unsaturated oxacyclic dicarboxylic acids, respectively. We conclude that the major chemical components of the aerosol are hemiacetal and peroxy hemiacetal oligomers and low-molecular-weight dicarboxylic acids.