Nighttime removal of NOx in the summer marine boundary layer

The nitrate radical, NO3, and dinitrogen pentoxide, N2O5, are two important components of nitrogen oxides that occur predominantly at night in the lower troposphere. Because a large fraction of NO2 reacts to form NO3 and N2O5 during the course of a night, their fate is an important determining factor to the overall fate of NOx (=NO and NO2). As a comprehensive test of nocturnal nitrogen oxide chemistry, concentrations of O3, NO, NO2, NO3, N2O5, HNO3 and a host of other relevant compounds, aerosol abundance and composition, and meteorological conditions were measured in the marine boundary layer from the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown off the East Coast of the United States as part of the New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS) during the summer of 2002. The results confirm the prominent role of NO3 and N2O5 in converting NOx to HNO3 at night with an efficiency on par with daytime photochemical conversion. The findings demonstrate the large role of nighttime chemistry in determining the NOx budget and consequent production of ozone. INDEX TERMS: 0322 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Constituent sources and sinks; 0345 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pollution—urban and regional (0305); 0365 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Troposphere—composition and chemistry. Citation: Brown, S. S., et al. (2004), Nighttime removal of NOx in the summer marine boundary layer, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L07108, doi:10.1029/2004GL01941

Measurement of radioxenon and radioargon in air from soil with elevated uranium concentration

Among the most important indicators for an underground nuclear explosion are the radioactive xenon isotopes 131mXe, 133Xe, 133mXe and 135Xe and the radioactive argon isotope 37Ar. In order to evaluate a detection of these nuclides in the context of a nuclear test verification regime it is crucial to have knowledge about expected background concentrations. Sub soil gas sampling was carried out on the oil shale ash waste pile in Kvarntorp, Sweden, a location with known elevated uranium content where 133Xe and 37Ar were detected in concentrations up to 120 mBq/m3 and 40 mBq/m3 respectively. These data provides one of the first times when xenon and argon were both detected in the same sub soil gas. This, and the correlations between the radionuclides, the sub soil gas contents (i.e. CO2, O2, and radon) and uranium concentration in the pile, provide very interesting information regarding the natural background and the xenon concentration levels and can most likely be used as an upper limit on what to be expected naturally occurring

Nanosecond and femtosecond probing of the dynamics of the UV-photodissociation of perfluoroethyliodide C2F5I

The ns photodissociation of perfluoroethyliodide C2F5I at 266 nm has been studied by using the resonant two-photon ionization (R2PI) technique. Recoil anisotropy parameters as well as average translational energy of the I atoms in the fine structure states P-2(1/2) and P-2(3/2) have been determined. The main contribution (99%) to the absorption at 266 nm was found to be caused by a parallel transition to the (3)Q(0) state which gives mainly excited-state atoms I(P-2(1/2)). The ground-state atoms I(P-2(3/2)) were found to appear mainly (88%) from the primarily excited (3)Q(0) state via curve-crossing (3)Q(0)-(1)Q(1) and to a lesser extent (12%) from direct absorption by a perpendicular transition to the (1)Q(1) and (3)Q(1) states. The fs pump-dump technique in combination with ns R2PI probing of the fragments I(P-2(1/2)) and I(P-2(3/2)) and time-of-flight mass spectrometry have been applied to probe the early stage dynamics of the C2F5I molecule on the excited state (3)Q(0) potential energy surface (PES). The evolution time of the excited molecule to the point where the energy gap between the excited state (3)Q(0) and the ground-state potential energy surfaces drops to a value of about 12 440 cm-1 was found to be 52 +/- 13 fs. This time corresponds to about 0.8 Angstrom extension of the C-I bond distance. The molecular dynamics simulation with DFT calculated ground-state PES and (3)Q(0) PES with the shape calculated for methyl iodide found in the literature gives reasonable agreement with the experimental result for the evolution time. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics

USE OF CAVITY RING DOWN SPECTROSCOPY IN ATMOSPHERIC STUDIES

Author Institution: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Aeronomy Laboratory; The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of ColoradoThe Cavity ringdown spectroscopy is a very versatile tool that has found many applications in the studies of the atmosphere. I will describe the use of CRDS in laboratory studies of atmospheric chemistry and photochemistry, measurements of NO3 and N2O5 in the atmosphere, quantification of aerosol extintion, and measurements of absorption cross sections needed for climate studies. The relevant atmospheric processes will be described and the needed information will be discussed. Examples of the relevant information from our laboratory studies will be presented

Measurement of radioxenon and radioargon in soil gas collected in the region of Kvarntorp, Sweden

Over 40 soil gas samples were collected both in post-industrial areas as well as in undisturbed areas in the region of Kvarntorp, Sweden. Radioxenon (133Xe) was detected in 15 samples and radioargon was detected in 7 from 10 samples analysed. The concentration of radioxenon and radioargon in soil gas ranged up to 109 mBq/m3 and 19 mBq/m3, respectively. During sample collection other soil gases such as radon, CO2 and O2 were also measured and soil samples were taken along with dose rate measurements. The field experiment presented here shows that it is possible to detect naturally occurring radioxenon and radioargon in soil gas simultaneously

Aqueous reactive species induced by a surface air discharge: Heterogeneous mass transfer and liquid chemistry pathways

Plasma-liquid interaction is a critical area of plasma science and a knowledge bottleneck for many promising applications. In this paper, the interaction between a surface air discharge and its downstream sample of deionized water is studied with a system-level computational model, which has previously reached good agreement with experimental results. Our computational results reveal that the plasma-induced aqueous species are mainly H+, nitrate, nitrite, H2O2 and O-3. In addition, various short-lived aqueous species are also induced, regardless whether they are generated in the gas phase first. The production/loss pathways for aqueous species are quantified for an air gap width ranging from 0.1 to 2 cm, of which heterogeneous mass transfer and liquid chemistry are found to play a dominant role. The short-lived reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are strongly coupled in liquid-phase reactions: NO3 is an important precursor for short-lived ROS, and in turn OH, O-2(-) and HO2 play a crucial role for the production of short-lived RNS. Also, heterogeneous mass transfer depends strongly on the air gap width, resulting in two distinct scenarios separated by a critical air gap of 0.5 cm. The liquid chemistry is significantly different in these two scenarios

Mass spectrometric and laser spectroscopic characterization of a supersonic planar plasma expansion

-- A(3)Sigma(u)(+) electronic transition of molecular nitrogen. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved