Water activity in polyol/water systems: new UNIFAC parameterization

International audienceWater activities of a series of polyol/water systems were measured with an AquaLab dew point water activity meter at 298K. The investigated polyols with carbon numbers from n=2-7 are all in liquid state at room temperature and miscible at any molar ratio with water. In aqueous solutions with the same molar concentration, the diols with lower molecular weight lead to lower water activities than those with higher molecular weights. For diols with four or more carbon atoms, the hydrophilicity shows considerable differences between isomers: The 1,2-isomers - consisting of a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic part - bind less strongly to water than isomers with a more balanced distribution of the hydroxyl groups. The experimental water activities were compared with the predictions of the group contribution method UNIFAC: the model predictions overestimate the water activity of water/polyol systems of substances with two or more hydroxyl groups and can not describe the decreased binding to water of isomers with hydrophobic tails. To account for the differences between isomers, a modified UNIFAC parameterization was developed, that allows to discriminate between three types of alkyl groups depending on their position in the molecule. These new group interaction parameters were calculated using water activities of alcohol/water mixtures. This leads to a distinctly improved agreement of model predictions with experimental results while largely keeping the simplicity of the functional group approach

Computation of liquid-liquid equilibria and phase stabilities: implications for RH-dependent gas/particle partitioning of organic-inorganic aerosols

Semivolatile organic and inorganic aerosol species partition between the gas and aerosol particle phases to maintain thermodynamic equilibrium. Liquid-liquid phase separation into an organic-rich and an aqueous electrolyte phase can occur in the aerosol as a result of the salting-out effect. Such liquid-liquid equilibria (LLE) affect the gas/particle partitioning of the different semivolatile compounds and might significantly alter both particle mass and composition as compared to a one-phase particle. We present a new liquid-liquid equilibrium and gas/particle partitioning model, using as a basis the group-contribution model AIOMFAC (Zuend et al., 2008). This model allows the reliable computation of the liquid-liquid coexistence curve (binodal), corresponding tie-lines, the limit of stability/metastability (spinodal), and further thermodynamic properties of multicomponent systems. Calculations for ternary and multicomponent alcohol/polyol-water-salt mixtures suggest that LLE are a prevalent feature of organic-inorganic aerosol systems. A six-component polyol-water-ammonium sulphate system is used to simulate effects of relative humidity (RH) and the presence of liquid-liquid phase separation on the gas/particle partitioning. RH, salt concentration, and hydrophilicity (water-solubility) are identified as key features in defining the region of a miscibility gap and govern the extent to which compound partitioning is affected by changes in RH. The model predicts that liquid-liquid phase separation can lead to either an increase or decrease in total particulate mass, depending on the overall composition of a system and the particle water content, which is related to the hydrophilicity of the different organic and inorganic compounds. Neglecting non-ideality and liquid-liquid phase separations by assuming an ideal mixture leads to an overestimation of the total particulate mass by up to 30% for the composition and RH range considered in the six-component system simulation. For simplified partitioning parametrizations, we suggest a modified definition of the effective saturation concentration, C_j^*, by including water and other inorganics in the absorbing phase. Such a C_j^* definition reduces the RH-dependency of the gas/particle partitioning of semivolatile organics in organic-inorganic aerosols by an order of magnitude as compared to the currently accepted definition, which considers the organic species only

Liquid-liquid phase separation and morphology of internally mixed dicarboxylic acids/ammonium sulfate/water particles

Knowledge of the physical state and morphology of internally mixed organic/inorganic aerosol particles is still largely uncertain. To obtain more detailed information on liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) and morphology of the particles, we investigated complex mixtures of atmospherically relevant dicarboxylic acids containing 5, 6, and 7 carbon atoms (C5, C6 and C7) having oxygen-to-carbon atomic ratios (O:C) of 0.80, 0.67, and 0.57, respectively, mixed with ammonium sulfate (AS). With micrometer-sized particles of C5/AS/H_2O, C6/AS/H_2O and C7/AS/H_2O as model systems deposited on a hydrophobically coated substrate, laboratory experiments were conducted for various organic-to-inorganic dry mass ratios (OIR) using optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. When exposed to cycles of relative humidity (RH), each system showed significantly different phase transitions. While the C5/AS/H_2O particles showed no LLPS with OIR = 2:1, 1:1 and 1:4 down to 20% RH, the C6/AS/H_2O and C7/AS/H_2O particles exhibit LLPS upon drying at RH 50 to 85% and ~90%, respectively, via spinodal decomposition, growth of a second phase from the particle surface or nucleation-and-growth mechanisms depending on the OIR. This suggests that LLPS commonly occurs within the range of O:C < 0.7 in tropospheric organic/inorganic aerosols. To support the comparison and interpretation of the experimentally observed phase transitions, thermodynamic equilibrium calculations were performed with the AIOMFAC model. For the C7/AS/H_2O and C6/AS/H_2O systems, the calculated phase diagrams agree well with the observations while for the C5/AS/H_2O system LLPS is predicted by the model at RH below 60% and higher AS concentration, but was not observed in the experiments. Both core-shell structures and partially engulfed structures were observed for the investigated particles, suggesting that such morphologies might also exist in tropospheric aerosols

Improved AIOMFAC model parameterisation of the temperature dependence of activity coefficients for aqueous organic mixtures

This study presents a new, improved parameterisation of the temperature dependence of activity coefficients in the AIOMFAC (Aerosol Inorganic–Organic Mixtures Functional groups Activity Coefficients) model applicable for aqueous as well as water-free organic solutions. For electrolyte-free organic and organic–water mixtures the AIOMFAC model uses a group-contribution approach based on UNIFAC (UNIversal quasi-chemical Functional-group Activity Coefficients). This group-contribution approach explicitly accounts for interactions among organic functional groups and between organic functional groups and water. The previous AIOMFAC version uses a simple parameterisation of the temperature dependence of activity coefficients, aimed to be applicable in the temperature range from ~ 275 to ~ 400 K. With the goal to improve the description of a wide variety of organic compounds found in atmospheric aerosols, we extend the AIOMFAC parameterisation for the functional groups carboxyl, hydroxyl, ketone, aldehyde, ether, ester, alkyl, aromatic carbon-alcohol, and aromatic hydrocarbon to atmospherically relevant low temperatures. To this end we introduce a new parameterisation for the temperature dependence. The improved temperature dependence parameterisation is derived from classical thermodynamic theory by describing effects from changes in molar enthalpy and heat capacity of a multi-component system. Thermodynamic equilibrium data of aqueous organic and water-free organic mixtures from the literature are carefully assessed and complemented with new measurements to establish a comprehensive database, covering a wide temperature range (~ 190 to ~ 440 K) for many of the functional group combinations considered. Different experimental data types and their processing for the estimation of AIOMFAC model parameters are discussed. The new AIOMFAC parameterisation for the temperature dependence of activity coefficients from low to high temperatures shows an overall improvement of 28% in comparison to the previous model version, when both versions are compared to our database of experimentally determined activity coefficients and related thermodynamic data. When comparing the previous and new AIOMFAC model parameterisations to the subsets of experimental data with all temperatures below 274 K or all temperatures above 322 K (i.e. outside a 25 K margin of the reference temperature of 298 K), applying the new parameterisation leads to 37% improvement in each of the two temperature ranges considered. The new parameterisation of AIOMFAC agrees well with a large number of experimental data sets. Larger model–measurement discrepancies were found particularly for some of the systems containing multi-functional organic compounds. The affected systems were typically also poorly represented at room temperature and further improvements will be necessary to achieve better performance of AIOMFAC in these cases (assuming the experimental data are reliable). The performance of the AIOMFAC parameterisation is typically better for systems containing relatively small organic compounds and larger deviations may occur in mixtures where molecules of high structural complexity such as highly oxygenated compounds or molecules of high molecular mass (e.g. oligomers) prevail. Nevertheless, the new parameterisation enables the calculation of activity coefficients for a wide variety of different aqueous/water-free organic solutions down to the low temperatures present in the upper troposphere

A thermodynamic model of mixed organic-inorganic aerosols to predict activity coefficients

Tropospheric aerosols contain mixtures of inorganic salts, acids, water, and a large variety of organic compounds. Interactions between these substances in liquid mixtures lead to discrepancies from ideal thermodynamic behaviour. By means of activity coefficients, non-ideal behaviour can be taken into account. We present here a thermodynamic model named AIOMFAC (Aerosol Inorganic-Organic Mixtures Functional groups Activity Coefficients) that is able to calculate activity coefficients covering inorganic, organic, and organic-inorganic interactions in aqueous solutions over a wide concentration range. This model is based on the activity coefficient model LIFAC by Yan et al. (1999) that we modified and reparametrised to better describe atmospherically relevant conditions and mixture compositions. Focusing on atmospheric applications we considered H^+, Li^+, Na^+, K^+, NH^+_4, Mg^(2+), Ca^(2+), Cl^−, Br^−, NO^−_3, HSO^−_4, and SO^(2−)_4 as cations and anions and a wide range of alcohols/polyols composed of the functional groups CH_n and OH as organic compounds. With AIOMFAC, the activities of the components within an aqueous electrolyte solution are well represented up to high ionic strength. Most notably, a semi-empirical middle-range parametrisation of direct organic-inorganic interactions in alcohol+water+salt solutions strongly improves the agreement between experimental and modelled activity coefficients. At room temperature, this novel thermodynamic model offers the possibility to compute equilibrium relative humidities, gas/particle partitioning and liquid-liquid phase separations with high accuracy. In further studies, other organic functional groups will be introduced. The model framework is not restricted to specific ions or organic compounds and is therefore also applicable for other research topics

Corrigendum to "A thermodynamic model of mixed organic–inorganic aerosols to predict activity coefficients" published in Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 4559–4593, 2008

No abstract available

Efficiency of immersion mode ice nucleation on surrogates of mineral dust

A differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) was used to explore heterogeneous ice nucleation of emulsified aqueous suspensions of two Arizona test dust (ATD) samples with particle diameters of nominally 0&amp;ndash;3 and 0&amp;ndash;7 μm, respectively. Aqueous suspensions with ATD concentrations of 0.01&amp;ndash;20 wt% have been investigated. The DSC thermograms exhibit a homogeneous and a heterogeneous freezing peak whose intensity ratios vary with the ATD concentration in the aqueous suspensions. Homogeneous freezing temperatures are in good agreement with recent measurements by other techniques. Depending on ATD concentration, heterogeneous ice nucleation occurred at temperatures as high as 256 K or down to the onset of homogeneous ice nucleation (237 K). For ATD-induced ice formation Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) offers a suitable framework to parameterize nucleation rates as a function of temperature, experimentally determined ATD size, and emulsion droplet volume distributions. The latter two quantities serve to estimate the total heterogeneous surface area present in a droplet, whereas the suitability of an individual heterogeneous site to trigger nucleation is described by the compatibility function (or contact angle) in CNT. The intensity ratio of homogeneous to heterogeneous freezing peaks is in good agreement with the assumption that the ATD particles are randomly distributed amongst the emulsion droplets. The observed dependence of the heterogeneous freezing temperatures on ATD concentrations cannot be described by assuming a constant contact angle for all ATD particles, but requires the ice nucleation efficiency of ATD particles to be (log)normally distributed amongst the particles. Best quantitative agreement is reached when explicitly assuming that high-compatibility sites are rare and that therefore larger particles have on average more and better active sites than smaller ones. This analysis suggests that a particle has to have a diameter of at least 0.1 μm to exhibit on average one active site

New and extended parameterization of the thermodynamic model AIOMFAC: calculation of activity coefficients for organic-inorganic mixtures containing carboxyl, hydroxyl, carbonyl, ether, ester, alkenyl, alkyl, and aromatic functional groups

We present a new and considerably extended parameterization of the thermodynamic activity coefficient model AIOMFAC (Aerosol Inorganic-Organic Mixtures Functional groups Activity Coefficients) at room temperature. AIOMFAC combines a Pitzer-like electrolyte solution model with a UNIFAC-based group-contribution approach and explicitly accounts for interactions between organic functional groups and inorganic ions. Such interactions constitute the salt-effect, may cause liquid-liquid phase separation, and affect the gas-particle partitioning of aerosols. The previous AIOMFAC version was parameterized for alkyl and hydroxyl functional groups of alcohols and polyols. With the goal to describe a wide variety of organic compounds found in atmospheric aerosols, we extend here the parameterization of AIOMFAC to include the functional groups carboxyl, hydroxyl, ketone, aldehyde, ether, ester, alkenyl, alkyl, aromatic carbon-alcohol, and aromatic hydrocarbon. Thermodynamic equilibrium data of organic-inorganic systems from the literature are critically assessed and complemented with new measurements to establish a comprehensive database. The database is used to determine simultaneously the AIOMFAC parameters describing interactions of organic functional groups with the ions H^+, Li^+, Na^+, K^+, NH_(4)^+, Mg^(2+), Ca^(2+), Cl^−, Br^−, NO_(3)^−, HSO_(4)^−, and SO_(4)^(2−). Detailed descriptions of different types of thermodynamic data, such as vapor-liquid, solid-liquid, and liquid-liquid equilibria, and their use for the model parameterization are provided. Issues regarding deficiencies of the database, types and uncertainties of experimental data, and limitations of the model, are discussed. The challenging parameter optimization problem is solved with a novel combination of powerful global minimization algorithms. A number of exemplary calculations for systems containing atmospherically relevant aerosol components are shown. Amongst others, we discuss aqueous mixtures of ammonium sulfate with dicarboxylic acids and with levoglucosan. Overall, the new parameterization of AIOMFAC agrees well with a large number of experimental datasets. However, due to various reasons, for certain mixtures important deviations can occur. The new parameterization makes AIOMFAC a versatile thermodynamic tool. It enables the calculation of activity coefficients of thousands of different organic compounds in organic-inorganic mixtures of numerous components. Models based on AIOMFAC can be used to compute deliquescence relative humidities, liquid-liquid phase separations, and gas-particle partitioning of multicomponent mixtures of relevance for atmospheric chemistry or in other scientific fields