ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-4-385-2004 Formation of binary ion clusters from polar vapours: effect of the dipole-charge interaction Nadykto A. B. 1 Yu F. 1 Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, State University of New York at Albany, 251 Fuller Road, Albany, NY 12203, USA 27 02 2004 4 2 385 389 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/4/385/2004/acp-4-385-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/4/385/2004/acp-4-385-2004.pdf

Formation of binary cluster ions from polar vapours is considered. The effect of vapour polarity on the size and composition of the critical clusters is investigated theoretically and a corrected version of classical Kelvin-Thomson theory of binary ion-induced nucleation is derived. The model predictions of the derived theory are compared to the results given by classical binary homogeneous nucleation theory and ion-induced nucleation theory. The calculations are performed in wide range of the ambient conditions for a system composed of sulfuric acid and water vapour. It is shown that dipole-charge interaction significantly decreases the size of the critical clusters, especially under the atmospheric conditions when the size of critical clusters is predicted to be small.