Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Fresh and aged diesel soot particles have different impacts on climate and human health. While fresh diesel soot particles are highly aspherical and non-hygroscopic, aged particles are spherical and hygroscopic. Aging and its effect on water uptake also controls the dispersion of diesel soot in the atmosphere. Understanding the timescales on which diesel soot ages in the atmosphere is thus important, yet knowledge thereof is lacking. We show that under cold, dark and humid conditions the atmospheric transformation from fresh to aged soot occurs on a timescale of less than five hours. Under dry conditions in the laboratory, diesel soot transformation is much less efficient. While photochemistry drives soot aging, our data show it is not always a limiting factor. Field observations together with aerosol process model simulations show that the rapid ambient diesel soot aging in urban plumes is caused by coupled ammonium nitrate formation and water uptake.
Source: Scientific Reports
Institutions: Lund University, University of Helsinki, University of Oslo
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Awards: G1339781370, G2373878115, G2599173511, G3855401713, G434337789, Beyond the Welfare State: The Europeanization of Swedish Civil Society Organizations, G5729379464, G6270694864, Mixing Status of Black Carbon in Fresh and Processed Emissions from Biomass Combustion - Implications for Human Health and Short Lived Climate Forcing, Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure, G8706614241
OpenAlex ID: W2759058317