www.atmos-chem-phys.net/6/975/2006/ © Author(s) 2006. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. A new inorganic atmospheric aerosol phase equilibrium model (UHAERO) 1Department of Mathematics, University of Houston, Houston, USA 2Ecole Nationale SupĂ©rieure de Techniques AvancĂ©es, Paris, France 3Departments of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA 4Department of Chemical Engineering, Seoul National University of Technology, Seoul, Korea Abstract. A variety of thermodynamic models have been developed to predict inorganic gas-aerosol equilibrium. To achieve computational efficiency a number of the models rely on a priori specification of the phases present in certain relative humidity regimes. Presented here is a new computational model, named UHAERO, that is both efficient and rigorously computes phase behavior without any a priori specification. The computational implementation is based on minimization of the Gibbs free energy using a primal-dual method, coupled to a Newton iteration. The mathematical details of the solution are given elsewhere. The model computes deliquescence behavior without any a priori specification of the relative humidities of deliquescence. Also included in the model is a formulation based on classical theory of nucleation kinetics that predicts crystallization behavior. Detailed phase diagrams of the sulfate/nitrate/ammonium/water system are presented as a function of relative humidity at 298.15 K over the complete space of composition. Final Revised Paper (PDF, 1524 KB) Discussion Paper (ACPD) Citation: Amundson, N. R., Caboussat, A., He, J. W., Martynenko, A. V., Savarin, V. B., Seinfeld, J. H., and Yoo, K. Y.: A new inorganic atmospheric aerosol phase equilibrium model (UHAERO), Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 975-992, 2006. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager |