Contributions of Acid-Catalysed Processes to Secondary Organic Aerosol Mass - A Modelling pproach

A significant fraction of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mass is formed by chemical and/or physical processes. However, the amount of organic material found in ambient organic aerosols cannot be explained with current models. Recently, several laboratory studies have been published which suggest that also acid-catalyzed processes that occur either in particles or at their surfaces (heterogeneous) might contribute significantly to mass formation. However, to date there is no general conclusion about the efficiency of such processes due to the great diversity of species and experimental conditions. We present a compilation of literature data (thermodynamic and kinetic) of these processes. The aerosol yields of (i) additional species which are thought previously not contribute to SOA formation (e.g. isoprene, aliphatic aldehydes) and (ii) species which form apparently higher SOA masses on acidic seed aerosols are reported and compared to input data of previous SOA models. Available kinetic data clearly exclude aldol condensation as a significant process for SOA formation on a time scale of typical aerosol life times. Using aerosol size distributions and gas phase concentrations measured during NEAQS2002 as model input data, we show that (even under assumption of equilibrium conditions) these additional processes only contribute a minor fraction to the organic aerosol mass.