A current challenge for the atmospheric chemistry community is the ability to simulate atmospheric secondary organic aerosol (SOA). It has been shown that aerosol liquid water represents an important medium for uptake and processing of soluble and low vapor pressure gas phase organic species, that can further react in that aqueous phse, to produce lower vapor pressure species. It has also recently been shown that organic nitrates produced from oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) can be important SOA precursors, even though ambient particle phase organic nitrate concentrations are often very low. The latter fact is reconciled from the fact that at low pH, organic nitrates can readily hydrolyze to produce the corresponding diol. Here we discuss recent observations of ambient atmospheric organic nitrate production and gas phase concentrations, and modeling of the gas and aerosol phase mass that is tied to that production, and recent laboratory studies of the production of organic nitrates from OH readical oxidation of isoprene and terpenes. We conducted measurements of the pH-dependent hydrolysis of these organic nitrates, that supports both field and laboratory measurements of the role of uptake and hydrolysis of these compounds in the aerosol phase. Here we discuss the current state of knowledge of the field, and opportunities to make further progress.

Atmospheric organic nitrates, secondary organic aerosol, and aqueous phase chemistry

2019 Fall National Meeting

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