Mass Accommodation Coefficients of Water on Organics from Complementary Photoacoustic and Light Scattering Measurements on Laser-Trapped Droplets


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Date

2020-01-30

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Abstract

The mass accommodation coefficient, $\alpha_M$, describes evaporation and condensation kinetics at the liquid-vapor interface. In spite of numerous experimental efforts, reliable values of $\alpha_M$ are still not available for many substances. Here, we present a novel experimental technique, photothermal single-particle spectroscopy (PSPS), that allows for a robust retrieval of mass accommodation coefficients from three simultaneous independent measurements. PSPS combines resonant photoacoustic absorption spectroscopy with modulated Mie scattering measurements on single particles. We study the mass transport of water on organic aerosol droplets that are optically trapped using counter-propagating tweezers. We find the mass accommodation coefficient of water on a pure model organic that is fully miscible with water to be 0.021 at 296K, and to decrease by more than an order of magnitude when the temperature increases to 309K. The experimentally observed temperature dependence of $\alpha_M$ shows an Arrhenius behavior. Furthermore, the water content of the droplets is found to have a profound effect on $\alpha_M$. No concentration dependence of $\alpha_M$ is observed at low water concentrations, while at elevated water concentrations we observe a fivefold increase in $\alpha_M$. The technique presented in this work has the potential to become a reliable method for the retrieval of $\alpha_M$ values at liquid-vapor interfaces, which are essential for accurate global climate and pharmaceutical aerosol inhalation modeling, to mention but a few.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

124

Volume

4 (2481)

Pages / Article No.

2489

Publisher

American Chemical Society

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Edition / version

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Geographic location

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Organisational unit

03961 - Signorell, Ruth / Signorell, Ruth check_circle

Notes

Funding

177479 - Fundamentals of Aerosol Photoacoustic Spectroscopy (SNF)
172472 - Phase Transitions of Ultrafine Aerosol Particles: Condensation, Freezing, and Metal Formation in Confined Systems (SNF)

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