Title: Evaluation of some SOA formation schemes for the oxidation of anthropogenic gases against experiments in two outdoor chambers

Authors: Marta Garcia Vivanco; Florian Couvidat; Christian Seigneur; Myoseon Jang; Manuel Santiago; Bertrand Bessagnet

Addresses: Atmospheric Pollution Division, CIEMAT, Avda. Complutense 40, 28040 Madrid, Spain ' INERIS, Parc Technologique Alata, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France ' Cerea, Joint laboratory ecole des Ponts ParisTech/EDF R&D, Université Paris-Est, 77455 Marne-la-Vallée cedex 2, France ' University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA ' WorleyParsons Spain, Avenida de Europa 23, Bloque C, 1 Isda. 28023, Madrid, Spain ' INERIS, Parc Technologique Alata, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France

Abstract: Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation remains a challenge for the air quality modelling community. Gaps in the current knowledge of certain processes involved in SOA formation and evolution, as well as the large number of uncertainties in many parameters involved, affect the accuracy of the simulation of atmospheric SOA concentrations. We present here an evaluation of several published SOA schemes by simulating experiments conducted in two outdoor chambers, EUPHORE (Ceam, Valencia, Spain) and UF (University of Florida, Gainesville, USA). The experiments focused on the oxidation of selected anthropogenic volatile organic compounds. We compare model estimates for one-step, two-step and multi-step gas-phase oxidation schemes with SOA concentrations measured in the chambers. For all schemes, some modifications were needed to obtain a better agreement between model simulations and observations.

Keywords: secondary organic aerosols; SOA formation; air quality modelling; chamber experiments; oxidation; anthropogenic gases; outdoor chambers; air pollution; simulation; anthropogenic VOCs; volatile organic compounds.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2016.078062

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2016 Vol.59 No.1, pp.43 - 55

Accepted: 11 Apr 2016
Published online: 31 Jul 2016 *

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