Equilibrium absorptive partitioning theory between multiple aerosol particle modes

Abstract

An existing equilibrium absorptive partitioning model for calculating the equilibrium gas and particle concentrations of multiple semi-volatile organics within a bulk aerosol is extended to allow for multiple involatile aerosol modes of different sizes and chemical compositions. In the bulk aerosol problem, the partitioning coefficient determines the fraction of the total concentration of semi-volatile material that is in the condensed phase of the aerosol. This work modifies this definition for multiple polydisperse aerosol modes to account for multiple condensed concentrations, one for each semi-volatile on each involatile aerosol mode. The pivotal assumption in this work is that each aerosol mode contains an involatile constituent, thus overcoming the potential problem of smaller particles evaporating completely and then condensing on the larger particles to create a monodisperse aerosol at equilibrium. A parameterisation is proposed in which the coupled non-linear system of equations is approximated by a simpler set of equations obtained by setting the organic mole fraction in the partitioning coefficient to be the same across all modes. By perturbing the condensed masses about this approximate solution a correction term is derived that accounts for many of the removed complexities. This method offers a greatly increased efficiency in calculating the solution without significant loss in accuracy, thus making it suitable for inclusion in large-scale models.