Effect of Surfactants on the Growth of Individual Cloud Droplets

Accurately predicting cloud droplet growth and lifetime remains a large uncertainty in estimates of Earth's changing energy budget. Current findings suggest that surface-active organic compounds and other surfactants in cloud droplets can affect the rate and magnitude of water condensation onto and evaporation from droplets affecting a myriad of cloud properties. This idea represents a significant change from prior thinking that focused solely on solubility as the chemical influence on water uptake to droplets. Recent observations show that surfactants extracted from atmospheric aerosol particles can considerably reduce the surface tension of water, making them important factors in cloud droplet growth that were until recently considered to be negligible. Using the surfactant Igepal CA-630, which has properties similar to that of surfactants extracted from atmospheric aerosol samples, model cloud droplets were created in the laboratory. The evaporation and condensation of the individual droplets were investigated using an aerosol optical trap with Raman spectroscopy. With a change in relative humidity (RH) from 70% to 80%, droplets containing both Igepal and NaCl had much larger changes in droplet radii than droplets containing NaCl only, demonstrating a significant effect of surface tension depression on evaporation and condensation. Given an increase in RH in the atmosphere, this could lead to droplets containing surfactants growing larger than those without surfactants and a substantial change in CCN activity.