References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-12-4117-2012

Atmospheric sulphuric acid and neutral cluster measurements using CI-APi-TOF

Jokinen

¹ Sipilä

¹ Junninen

¹ Ehn

² Lönn

¹ Hakala

¹ Petäjä

¹ Mauldin III

R. L.

¹ ³ Kulmala

¹ Worsnop

D. R.

¹ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶

Department of Physics, P.O. Box 64, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland

Institute for Energy and Climate Research, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA

University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland

Finnish Meteorological Institute, 00880 Helsinki, Finland

Aerodyne Research Inc., Billerica, MA 01821, USA

09 05 2012

12 9 4117 4125

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/4117/2012/acp-12-4117-2012.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/4117/2012/acp-12-4117-2012.pdf

The first ambient measurements using nitrate ion based Chemical Ionization with the Atmospheric Pressure interface Time-Of-Flight mass spectrometer (CI-APi-TOF) for sulphuric acid and neutral cluster detection are presented. We have found CI-APi-TOF a highly stable and sensitive tool for molecular sulphuric acid detection. The lowest limit of detection for sulphuric acid was determined to be 3.6 × 104 molecules cm−3 for 15 min averaging. Signals from sulphuric acid clusters up to tetramer containing ammonia were also obtained but these were found to result from naturally charged clusters formed by ion induced clustering in the atmosphere during nucleation. Opposite to earlier studies with cluster mass spectrometers, we had no indication of neutral clusters. The reason is either less efficient charging of clusters in comparison to molecular sulphuric acid, or the low concentration of neutral clusters at our measurement site during these particular nucleation events. We show that utilizing high resolution mass spectrometry is crucial in separating the weak sulfuric acid cluster signal from other compounds.

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