Evaporating brine from frost flowers with electron microscopy and implications for atmospheric chemistry and sea-salt aerosol formation

Yang, Xin; Neděla, Vilém; Runštuk, Jiří; Ondrušková, Gabriela; Krausko, Ján; Vetráková, Ľubica; Heger, Dominik

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6291-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6291-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6291-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 10

Research article

|

23 May 2017

Research article |

| 23 May 2017

Evaporating brine from frost flowers with electron microscopy and implications for atmospheric chemistry and sea-salt aerosol formation

Xin Yang, Vilém Neděla, Jiří Runštuk, Gabriela Ondrušková, Ján Krausko, Ľubica Vetráková, and Dominik Heger

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6291-2017-supplement

Video supplement

Video to complete Figure 3. X. Yang, V. Neděla, J. Runštuk, G. Ondrušková, J. Krausko, Ľ. Vetráková, and D. Heger https://doi.org/10.5446/21430

Video to complete Figure 5. X. Yang, V. Neděla, J. Runštuk, G. Ondrušková, J. Krausko, Ľ. Vetráková, and D. Heger https://doi.org/10.5446/21431

Video to complete Figure 7. X. Yang, V. Neděla, J. Runštuk, G. Ondrušková, J. Krausko, Ľ. Vetráková, and D. Heger https://doi.org/10.5446/21432

A video of visualizing the formation of NaCl crystals on the top of the surface brine layer of FF related to Figure 8. X. Yang, V. Neděla, J. Runštuk, G. Ondrušková, J. Krausko, Ľ. Vetráková, and D. Heger https://doi.org/10.5446/21433

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Short summary

A unique environmental electron microscope was used for monitoring the evaporation of salty frost flowers. We observe a cohesive villous brine surface layer facilitating the formation of NaCl microcrystals at temperatures below −10°C as the brine oversaturation is achieved. This finding confirms the increased surface area and thus also the enhanced heterogeneous reactivity; however, no support for the easiness of fragmentation to produce aerosols can be provided.