Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism Research Articles

Multiphase MCM–CAPRAM modeling of the formation and processing of secondary aerosol constituents observed during the Mt. Tai summer campaign in 2014

Abstract. Despite the high abundance of secondary aerosols in the atmosphere, their formation mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM) and the Chemical Aqueous-Phase Radical Mechanism (CAPRAM) are used to investigate the multiphase formation and processing of secondary aerosol constituents during the advection of air masses towards the measurement site of Mt. Tai in northern China. Trajectories with and without chemical–cloud interaction are modeled. Modeled radical and non-radical concentrations demonstrate that the summit of Mt. Tai, with an altitude of ∼1.5 km a.m.s.l., is characterized by a suburban oxidants budget. The modeled maximum gas-phase concentrations of the OH radical are 3.2×106 and 3.5×106 molec. cm−3 in simulations with and without cloud passages in the air parcel, respectively. In contrast with previous studies at Mt. Tai, this study has modeled chemical formation processes of secondary aerosol constituents under day vs. night and cloud vs. non-cloud cases along the trajectories towards Mt. Tai in detail. The model studies show that sulfate is mainly produced in simulations where the air parcel is influenced by cloud chemistry. Under the simulated conditions, the aqueous reaction of HSO3- with H2O2 is the major contributor to sulfate formation, contributing 67 % and 60 % in the simulations with cloud and non-cloud passages, respectively. The modeled nitrate formation is higher at nighttime than during daytime. The major pathway is aqueous-phase N2O5 hydrolysis, with a contribution of 72 % when cloud passages are considered and 70 % when they are not. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) compounds, e.g., glyoxylic, oxalic, pyruvic and malonic acid, are found to be mostly produced from the aqueous oxidations of hydrated glyoxal, hydrated glyoxylic acid, nitro-2-oxopropanoate and hydrated 3-oxopropanoic acid, respectively. Sensitivity studies reveal that gaseous volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions have a huge impact on the concentrations of modeled secondary aerosol compounds. Increasing the VOC emissions by a factor of 2 leads to linearly increased concentrations of the corresponding SOA compounds. Studies using the relative incremental reactivity (RIR) method have identified isoprene, 1,3-butadiene and toluene as the key precursors for glyoxylic and oxalic acid, but only isoprene is found to be a key precursor for pyruvic acid. Additionally, the model investigations demonstrate that an increased aerosol partitioning of glyoxal can play an important role in the aqueous-phase formation of glyoxylic and oxalic acid. Overall, the present study is the first that provides more detailed insights in the formation pathways of secondary aerosol constituents at Mt. Tai and clearly emphasizes the importance of aqueous-phase chemical processes on the production of multifunctional carboxylic acids.

Kinetic and Theoretical Study of the Atmospheric Aqueous-Phase Reactions of OH Radicals with Methoxyphenolic Compounds.

Methoxyphenols, which are emitted through biomass burning, are an important species in atmospheric chemistry. In the present study, temperature-dependent aqueous-phase OH radical reactions of six methoxyphenols and two related phenols have been investigated through laser flash photolysis and the density functional theory. The rate constants obtained were in a range of (1.1-1.9) × 1010 L mol-1 s-1 with k(3-MC) > k(Cre) ≈ k(Syr) ≈ k(MEP) > k(Res) > k(3-MP) > k(2-EP) ≈ k(2-MP). We derived the parameters of these reactions from the obtained T-dependent rate constants and found a mean Arrhenius activation energy of 16.9 kJ mol-1. The diffusion rate constants were calculated for each case and compared to the measured ones. Generally, the rate constants are found to be close to fully diffusion-controlled (kdiff = (1.4-1.5) × 1010 L mol-1 s-1 for all reactions). A structure-function relationship was established through the measurement result, which could be used for predicting unknown rate constants of other phenolic compounds. All of these findings are expected to enhance the predictive capabilities of models, such as the chemical aqueous-phase radical mechanism.

An advanced modeling study on the impacts and atmospheric implications of multiphase dimethyl sulfide chemistry

Oceans dominate emissions of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), the major natural sulfur source. DMS is important for the formation of non-sea salt sulfate (nss-SO42-) aerosols and secondary particulate matter over oceans and thus, significantly influence global climate. The mechanism of DMS oxidation has accordingly been investigated in several different model studies in the past. However, these studies had restricted oxidation mechanisms that mostly underrepresented important aqueous-phase chemical processes. These neglected but highly effective processes strongly impact direct product yields of DMS oxidation, thereby affecting the climatic influence of aerosols. To address these shortfalls, an extensive multiphase DMS chemistry mechanism, the Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism DMS Module 1.0, was developed and used in detailed model investigations of multiphase DMS chemistry in the marine boundary layer. The performed model studies confirmed the importance of aqueous-phase chemistry for the fate of DMS and its oxidation products. Aqueous-phase processes significantly reduce the yield of sulfur dioxide and increase that of methyl sulfonic acid (MSA), which is needed to close the gap between modeled and measured MSA concentrations. Finally, the simulations imply that multiphase DMS oxidation produces equal amounts of MSA and sulfate, a result that has significant implications for nss-SO42- aerosol formation, cloud condensation nuclei concentration, and cloud albedo over oceans. Our findings show the deficiencies of parameterizations currently used in higher-scale models, which only treat gas-phase chemistry. Overall, this study shows that treatment of DMS chemistry in both gas and aqueous phases is essential to improve the accuracy of model predictions.

Modeling the Impact of Iron–Carboxylate Photochemistry on Radical Budget and Carboxylate Degradation in Cloud Droplets and Particles

To quantify the effects of an advanced iron photochemistry scheme, the chemical aqueous-phase radical mechanism (CAPRAM 3.0i) has been updated with several new Fe(III)-carboxylate complex photolysis reactions. Newly introduced ligands are malonate, succinate, tartrate, tartronate, pyruvate, and glyoxalate. Model simulations show that more than 50% of the total Fe(III) is coordinated by oxalate and up to 20% of total Fe(III) is bound in the newly implemented 1:1 complexes with tartronate, malonate, and pyruvate. Up to 20% of the total Fe(III) is found in hydroxo and sulfato complexes. The fraction of [Fe(oxalate)2](-) and [Fe(pyruvate)](2+) is significantly higher during nighttime than during daytime, which points toward a strong influence of photochemistry on these species. Fe(III) complex photolysis is an important additional sink for tartronate, pyruvate, and oxalate, with a complex photolysis contribution to overall degradation of 46, 40, and 99%, respectively, compared to all possible sink reactions with atmospheric aqueous-phase radicals, such as (•)OH, NO3(•), and SO4(•) (-). Simulated aerosol particles have a much lower liquid water content than cloud droplets, thus leading to high concentrations of species and, consequently, an enhancement of the photolysis sink reactions in the aerosol particles. The simulations showed that Fe(III) photochemistry should not be neglected when considering the fate of carboxylic acids, which constitute a major part of aqueous secondary organic aerosol (aqSOA) in tropospheric cloud droplets and aqueous particles. Failure to consider this loss pathway has the potential to result in a significant overestimate of aqSOA production.

Examining the impacts of ethanol (E85) versus gasoline photochemical production of smog in a fog using near-explicit gas- and aqueous-chemistry mechanisms

This study investigates the air quality impacts of using a high-blend ethanol fuel (E85) instead of gasoline in vehicles in an urban setting when a morning fog is present under summer and winter conditions. The model couples the near-explicit gas-phase Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM v. 3.1) with the extensive aqueous-phase Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism (CAPRAM 3.0i) in SMVGEAR II, a fast and accurate ordinary differential equation solver. Summer and winter scenarios are investigated during a two day period in the South Coast Air Basin (SCAB) with all gasoline vehicles replaced by flex-fuel vehicles running on E85 in 2020. We find that E85 slightly increases ozone compared with gasoline in the presence or absence of a fog under summer conditions but increases ozone significantly relative to gasoline during winter conditions, although winter ozone is always lower than summer ozone. A new finding here is that a fog during summer may increase ozone after the fog disappears, due to chemistry alone. Temperatures were high enough in the summer to increase peroxy radical (RO2) production with the morning fog, which led to the higher ozone after fog dissipation. A fog on a winter day decreases ozone after the fog. Within a fog, ozone is always lower than if no fog occurs. The sensitivity of the results to fog parameters like droplet size, liquid water content, fog duration and photolysis are investigated and discussed. The results support previous work suggesting that E85 and gasoline both enhance pollution with E85 enhancing pollution significantly more at low temperatures. Thus, neither E85 nor gasoline is a ‘clean-burning’ fuel.

Coupling of highly explicit gas and aqueous chemistry mechanisms for use in 3-D

This study discusses the coupling of a near-explicit gas-phase chemical mechanism with an extensive aqueous-phase mechanism in an accurate chemical solver designed for use in 3-D models. The gas and aqueous mechanisms and the solver used are the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM 3.1), the Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism (CAPRAM 3.0i), and the SMVGEAR II ordinary differential solver, respectively. The MCM has over 13,500 reactions and 4600 species, whereas CAPRAM treats aqueous chemistry among 390 species and 829 reactions (including 51 gas-to-aqueous phase reactions). SMVGEAR II is a sparse-matrix Gear solver that reduces the computation time significantly while maintaining any specified accuracy. MCM has been used previously with SMVGEAR II in 3-D, and computer timings here indicate that coupling MCM with CAPRAM in SMVGEAR II is also practical. Gas- and aqueous-phase species are coupled through time-dependent dissolutional growth and dissociation equations. This method is validated with a smaller mechanism against results from a previous model intercomparison. When the smaller mechanism is compared with the full MCM-CAPRAM mechanism, some concentrations are still similar but others differ due to the greater detail in chemistry. We also expand the mechanism to include gas–aqueous transfer of two acids, glycolic acid and glyoxylic acid, and modify the glyoxal Henry's law constant from recent measurements. The average glyoxal partitioning in the cloud changed from 67% aqueous-phase to 87% aqueous-phase with the modifications. The addition of gas–aqueous transfer reactions increased the average gas-phase percentage of glycolic acid to 19% and of glyoxylic acid to 16%. This full gas-phase and aqueous-phase chemistry module is a potentially useful tool for studying air pollution in a cloud or a fog.

Mechanism of carboxylic acid photooxidation in atmospheric aqueous phase: Formation, fate and reactivity

In the first part of the work, we investigated the reactivity toward photogenerated hydroxyl radicals (OH) of seven monocarboxylic acids and six dicarboxylic acids found in natural cloud water. This leads to the proposition of a schematic degradation pathway linking glutaric acid (C5) to complete mineralization into CO2. We report a detailed mechanism on the succinic acid reactivity toward OH leading to the formation of malonic, glyoxylic and consequently oxalic acids and a comparison with reported pathways proposed by the CAPRAM (Chemical Aqueous Phase RAdical Mechanism) is discussed. We also investigated the photooxidation of formic acid under atmospherically relevant conditions leading to the possible formation of oxalic acid via radical mediated recombination.The second part focuses on the polychromatic irradiation (closed to solar irradiation) of a collected cloud aqueous phase showing that irradiation of cloud water leads to the formation of both formic and acetic acids. Carboxylic acid formation increases in the presence of photogenerated hydroxyl radicals from hydrogen peroxide, showing that photooxidation could play a key role in the formation of carboxylic acids under atmospherically relevant conditions.

Towards a more detailed description of tropospheric aqueous phase organic chemistry: CAPRAM 3.0

CAPRAM 3.0 is the latest development of the chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism (CAPRAM) series which is incorporating CAPRAM 2.4 (Ervens et al., 2003a, Journal of Geophysical Research—Atmospheres 108) and a new extended reaction mechanism for atmospherically relevant hydrocarbons containing more than two and up to six carbon atoms. The chemistry of organics containing three and four carbon atoms is now described in detail. Almost 400 new reactions are now implemented considering the chemistry of organic compounds containing different functional groups, i.e. alcohols, carbonyl compounds, mono- and dicarboxylic acids, polyfunctional compounds as well as some esters and one heterocyclic compound. The aqueous chemistry has been coupled to the gas phase mechanism RACM (regional atmospheric chemistry modeling) (Stockwell et al., 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research—Atmpspheres 102, 25847–25879), and phase exchange is treated using the resistance model of Schwartz (1986. In: Jaeschke, W. (Ed.), Chemistry of Multiphase Atmospheric Systems, NATO ASI Series, Springer, Berlin, pp. 415–471). The CAPRAM remote scenario which was chosen as the standard scenario showed that the introduction of the higher organic chemistry has a relevant influence on the standard subsystems. The diurnal peak concentration of OH radical in the droplets decreases with about 40% and the reactions of OH with hydrocarbons containing 3 or 4 carbon atoms account for about 10% out of the total sinks of OH in the droplets. A slightly stronger acidification of the aqueous phase in comparison to CAPRAM 2.4 is observed. The simulations for the standard scenario showed that there is an increase of organic mass within the droplets where the organic compounds containing 4 carbon atoms represent the 67.5% of the total mass, whereas in the urban and in the marine scenario the contribution of two carbon atom compounds is dominating. The formation and accumulation of substituted mono- and dicarboxylic acids such as tartaric, mesoxalic and acetic acid in the aqueous phase are also observed.

CAPRAM 2.4 (MODAC mechanism): An extended and condensed tropospheric aqueous phase mechanism and its application

A detailed and extended chemical mechanism describing tropospheric aqueous phase chemistry (147 species and 438 reactions) is presented here as Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism (CAPRAM) 2.4 (MODAC mechanism). The mechanism based on the former version 2.3 [Herrmann et al., 2000] contains extended organic and transition metal chemistry and is formulated more explicitly based on a critical review of the literature. The aqueous chemistry has been coupled to the gas phase mechanism Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling (RACM) [Stockwell et al., 1997], and phase exchange accounted for using the resistance model of Schwartz [1986]. A method for estimating mass accommodation coefficients (α) is described, which accounts for functional groups contained in a particular compound. A condensed version has also been developed to allow the use of CAPRAM 2.4 (MODAC mechanism) in higher‐scale models. Here the reproducibility of the concentration levels of selected target species (i.e., NOx, S(IV), H2O2, NO3, OH, O3, and H+) within the limits of ± 5% was used as a goal for eliminating insignificant reactions from the complete CAPRAM 2.4 (MODAC mechanism). This has been done using a range of initial conditions chosen to represent different atmospheric scenarios, and this produces a robust and concise set of reactions. The most interesting results are obtained using atmospheric conditions typical for an urban scenario, and the effects introduced by updating the aqueous phase chemistry are highlighted, in particular, with regard to radicals, redox cycling of transition metal ions and organic compounds. Finally, the reduced scheme has been incorporated into a one‐dimensional (1‐D) marine cloud model to demonstrate the applicability of this mechanism.

Comment on “A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry” by H. Herrmann et al.

Comment on “A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry” by H. Herrmann et al.

Reply to “Comment on “A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry” by R. Sander and P. Crutzen”

Reply to “Comment on “A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry” by R. Sander and P. Crutzen”

CAPRAM2.3: A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry

A Chemical Aqueous Phase Radical Mechanism (CAPRAM) for modelling tropospheric multiphase chemistry is described. CAPRAM contains (1) a detailed treatment of the oxidation of organic compounds with one and two carbon atoms, (2) an explicit description of S(IV)-oxidation by radicals and iron(III), as well as by peroxides and ozone, (3) the reactions of OH, NO 3 ,C l 2 , Br 2 ,a nd CO 3 radicals, as well as reactions of the transition metal ions (TMI) iron, manganese and copper. A modelling study using a simple box model was performed for three different tropospheric conditions (marine, rural and urban) using CAPRAM coupled to the RADM2-mechanism (Stockwell et al., 1990) for liquid and gas phase chemistry, respectively. In the main calculations the droplets are assumed as monodispersed with a radius of 1m and a liquid water content of 0.3 g m 3 .I n the coupled mechanism the phase transfer of 34 substances is treated by the resistance model of Schwartz (1989). Results are presented for the concentration levels of the radicals in both phases under variation of cloud duration and droplet radius. The effects of the multiphase processes are shown in the loss fluxes of the radicals OH, NO 3 and HO2 into the cloud droplets. From calculations under urban conditions considering gas phase chemistry only the OH maximum concentration level is found to be 5:5 10 6 cm 3 . In the presence of the aqueous phase (r D 1 m, LWC D 0: 3g m 3 ) the phase transfer constitutes the most important sink (58%) reducing the OH level to 1:0 10 6 cm 3 . The significance of the phase transfer during night time is more important for the NO3 radical (90%). Its concentration level in the gas phase (1:9 10 9 cm 3 ) is reduced to 1:4 10 6 cm 3 with liquid water present. In the case of the HO2 radical the phase transfer from the gas phase is nearly the only sink (99.8%). The concentration levels calculated in the absence and presence of the liquid phase again differ by three orders of magnitude, 6 10 8 cm 3 and 4:9 10 5 cm 3 , respectively. Effects of smaller duration of cloud occurrence and of droplet size variation are assessed. Furthermore, in the present study a detailed description of a radical oxidation chain for sulfur is presented. The most important reaction chain is the oxidation of (hydrogen) sulphite by OH and the subsequent conversion of SO 3 to SO 5 followed by the interaction with TMI (notably Fe 2C )a nd chloride to produce sulphate. After 36 h of simulation ((H2O2U0 D 1 ppb; (SO2U0 D 10 ppb) the direct oxidation pathway from sulfur(IV) by H2O2 and ozone contributes only to 8% (2:9 10 10 M s 1 ) of the total loss flux of S(IV) (3 :7 10 9 Ms 1 ).

A chemical aqueous phase radical mechanism for tropospheric chemistry

In the present work model simulations with a box model applying typical tropospheric initial conditions for three different scenarios (marine, rural and urban conditions) are performed to model tropospheric chemistry in both the gas and the aqueous phase. The gas phase chemistry is described by RADM2 [1]. For the aqueous phase chemistry a detailed aqueous phase mechanism (CAPRAM, c hemical a queous p hase r adical m echanism) was developed. This mechanism is more extensive than other existing mechanisms, because the oxidation of organic compounds with one and two carbon atoms, an explicit description of radical or iron(III) initiated S(IV)-oxidation, the reactions of radicals and radical anions ·OH, NO 3·,·Cl 2 −,·Br 2 −, and CO 3 −·, and the chemistry of the dissolved transition metal ions (TMI) iron, manganese and copper is treated in detail.