Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
www.atmos-chem-phys.net
1680-7316
1680-7324
9
9
2009
10.5194/acp-9-2933-2009
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/2933/2009/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/2933/2009/acp-9-2933-2009.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/2933/2009/acp-9-2933-2009.pdf
2933
2947
2009-05-06
Aerosol dynamics simulations on the connection of sulphuric acid and new particle formation
S.-L. Sihto
sanna-liisa.sihto@helsinki.fi
H. Vuollekoski
J. Leppä
I. Riipinen
V.-M. Kerminen
H. Korhonen
K. E. J. Lehtinen
M. Boy
M. Kulmala
University of Helsinki, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 64, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Climate and Global Change, P.O. Box 503, 00101 Helsinki, Finland
University of Kuopio, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio Unit, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland
We have performed a series of simulations with an aerosol dynamics box model to
study the connection between new particle formation and sulphuric acid
concentration. For nucleation either activation mechanism with a linear
dependence on the sulphuric acid concentration, kinetic mechanism with a squared
dependence on the sulphuric acid concentration or ternary
H<sub>2</sub>O-H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub>-NH<sub>3</sub> nucleation was assumed. The aim was to study
the factors that affect the sulphuric acid dependence during the early
stages of particle growth, and specifically to find conditions which would yield
the linear dependence between the particle number concentration at 3–6 nm
and sulphuric acid, as observed in field experiments. The simulations showed
that the correlation with sulphuric acid may change during the growth from
nucleation size to 3–6 nm size range, the main reason being the size
dependent growth rate between 1 and 3 nm. In addition, the assumed size for
the nucleated clusters had a crucial impact on the sulphuric acid dependence
at 3 nm. A linear dependence between the particle
number concentration at 3 nm and sulphuric acid was achieved, when activation
nucleation mechanism was used with a low saturation vapour pressure for the
condensable organic vapour, or with nucleation taking place at ~2 nm
instead of ~1 nm. Simulations with activation, kinetic and ternary nucleation showed that ternary
nucleation reproduces too steep dependence on sulphuric acid as compared to
the linear or square dependence observed in field measurements.
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