Evaluation of the chemical composition of gas- and particle-phase products of aromatic oxidation

Mehra, Archit; Wang, Yuwei; Krechmer, Jordan E.; Lambe, Andrew; Majluf, Francesca; Morris, Melissa A.; Priestley, Michael; Bannan, Thomas J.; Bryant, Daniel J.; Pereira, Kelly L.; Hamilton, Jacqueline F.; Rickard, Andrew R.; Newland, Mike J.; Stark, Harald; Croteau, Philip; Jayne, John T.; Worsnop, Douglas R.; Canagaratna, Manjula R.; Wang, Lin; Coe, Hugh

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9783-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9783-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9783-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 16

Research article

|

21 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 21 Aug 2020

Evaluation of the chemical composition of gas- and particle-phase products of aromatic oxidation

Archit Mehra, Yuwei Wang, Jordan E. Krechmer, Andrew Lambe, Francesca Majluf, Melissa A. Morris, Michael Priestley, Thomas J. Bannan, Daniel J. Bryant, Kelly L. Pereira, Jacqueline F. Hamilton, Andrew R. Rickard, Mike J. Newland, Harald Stark, Philip Croteau, John T. Jayne, Douglas R. Worsnop, Manjula R. Canagaratna, Lin Wang, and Hugh Coe

Download

Final revised paper (published on 21 Aug 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Mar 2020)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of "Evaluation of the Chemical Composition of Gas and Particle Phase Products of Aromatic Oxidation", by Mehra et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Apr 2020
RC2: 'Comments on acp-2020-161', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Apr 2020
AC1: 'Author Response to Both Referee Comments', Archit Mehra, 18 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Archit Mehra on behalf of the Authors (18 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 Jun 2020) by Min Shao

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Jul 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This paper reports results of mass spectral analyses of gas- and particle-phase products formed in the reactions of several C9 alkylbenzenes and 1-methyl naphthalene with OH radicals in the presence and absence of NOx. The products are identified by mass and the atomic numbers corresponding to the masses, but other structural information is not provided.

In my review of the previous version of the manuscript, I stated that this paper gives potentially useful information on products formed from aromatics, but I had some concerns about how representative the experiments are of atmospheric conditions and the correspondence between the ion signals and actual product yields. In addition, I think the presentation and discussion of the results could be improved, especially with regard to mechanistic implications.

This revised manuscript addresses my previous comments sufficiently that I a now recommend its acceptance for publication, following a technical correction for the new Figure 7, discussed below. I would have preferred more information about relative signal strengths, but I understand their point regarding calibration difficulties. The qualitative information as provided is still useful, though not as much so had there been at least some attempt at quantification. I also still think the discussion of the comparison with MCM could be improved and at least they should give the structures of the MCM species rather than their hard-to-understand names in the Supplement, but the MCM comparisons are not critical for this work to be useful.

Figure 7 is new to this draft and was added to the manuscript as a result a suggestion I made in my review. The figure is indeed an improvement over the table it replaces, but omits the plot for methyl naphthalene and the labeling of medium NOx vs low NOx data is not clear. I presume the left plots for each compound is medium NOx and the right are for low NOx, based on the labeling for the darkest colors. However, not all the colors are indicated in the caption.

Hide

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (06 Jul 2020) by Min Shao

AR by Archit Mehra on behalf of the Authors (08 Jul 2020) Manuscript

Download

Article (1814 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

Aromatic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from anthropogenic activity are important for tropospheric ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Here we present a detailed chemical characterisation of SOA from four C9-aromatic isomers and a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). We identify and compare their oxidation products in the gas and particle phases, showing the different relative importance of oxidation pathways and proportions of highly oxygenated organic molecules.