The single-scattering properties of black carbon aggregates determined from the geometric-optics surface-wave approach and the T-matrix method

Abstract

The single-scattering properties of eight black carbon (BC, soot) fractal aggregates, composed of primary spheres from 7 to 600, computed by the geometric-optics surface-wave (GOS) approach coupled with the Rayleigh–Gans–Debye (RGD) adjustment for size parameters smaller than approximately 2, are compared with those determined from the superposition T-matrix method. We show that under the condition of random orientation, the results from GOS/RGD are in general agreement with those from T-matrix in terms of the extinction and absorption cross-sections, the single-scattering co-albedo, and the asymmetry factor. When compared with the specific absorption (m2/g) measured in the laboratory, we illustrate that using the observed radii of primary spheres ranging from 3.3 to 25nm, the theoretical values determined from GOS/RGD for primary sphere numbers of 100–600 are within the range of measured values. The GOS approach can be effectively applied to aggregates composed of a large number of primary spheres (e.g., >6000) and large size parameters (≫2) in terms of computational efforts.