Articles | Volume 26, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-8311-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-8311-2026
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
15 Jun 2026
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 15 Jun 2026

On describing particle nucleation within the Volatility Basis Set

Neil M. Donahue, Lubna Dada, Dominik Stolzenburg, Eva Sommer, Mario Simon, Meredith Schervish, Jenna DeVivo, Alexandra Stinchfield, Natalie Burton, Nirvan Bhattacharyya, Brandon Lopez, Mingyi Wang, Wiebke Scholz, João Almeida, Bin Zhao, Martin Heinritzi, Hamish Gordon, Armin Hansel, Joachim Curtius, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Imad El Haddad, Jasper Kirkby, Richard Flagan, Markku Kulmala, and Douglas Worsnop

Related authors

Calibrating interdependent photochemistry, nucleation, and aerosol microphysics in chamber experiments
Neil M. Donahue, Victoria Hofbauer, Henning Finkenzeller, Dominik Stolzenburg, Paulus S. Bauer, Randall Chiu, Lubna Dada, Jonathan Duplissy, Xu-Cheng He, Martin Heinritzi, Christopher R. Hoyle, Andreas Kürten, Aleksandr Kvashnin, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Naser Mahfouz, Vladimir Makhmutov, Roy L. Mauldin III, Ugo Molteni, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti Rissanen, Siegfried Schobesberger, Mario Simon, Andrea C. Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Ilona Riipinen, Hamish Gordon, Joachim Curtius, Armin Hansel, Imad El Haddad, Markku Kulmala, Douglas R. Worsnop, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Jasper Kirkby, and Richard Flagan
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 19, 3363–3396, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-3363-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-3363-2026, 2026
Short summary
Gas-phase observations of accretion products from stabilized Criegee intermediates in terpene ozonolysis with two dicarboxylic acids
Yuanyuan Luo, Lauri Franzon, Jiangyi Zhang, Nina Sarnela, Neil M. Donahue, Theo Kurtén, and Mikael Ehn
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4655–4664, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4655-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4655-2025, 2025
Short summary
Ammonium CI-Orbitrap: a tool for characterizing the reactivity of oxygenated organic molecules
Dandan Li, Dongyu Wang, Lucia Caudillo, Wiebke Scholz, Mingyi Wang, Sophie Tomaz, Guillaume Marie, Mihnea Surdu, Elias Eccli, Xianda Gong, Loic Gonzalez-Carracedo, Manuel Granzin, Joschka Pfeifer, Birte Rörup, Benjamin Schulze, Pekka Rantala, Sébastien Perrier, Armin Hansel, Joachim Curtius, Jasper Kirkby, Neil M. Donahue, Christian George, Imad El-Haddad, and Matthieu Riva
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 5413–5428, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5413-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5413-2024, 2024
Short summary
Measurement of the collision rate coefficients between atmospheric ions and multiply charged aerosol particles in the CERN CLOUD chamber
Joschka Pfeifer, Naser G. A. Mahfouz, Benjamin C. Schulze, Serge Mathot, Dominik Stolzenburg, Rima Baalbaki, Zoé Brasseur, Lucia Caudillo, Lubna Dada, Manuel Granzin, Xu-Cheng He, Houssni Lamkaddam, Brandon Lopez, Vladimir Makhmutov, Ruby Marten, Bernhard Mentler, Tatjana Müller, Antti Onnela, Maxim Philippov, Ana A. Piedehierro, Birte Rörup, Meredith Schervish, Ping Tian, Nsikanabasi S. Umo, Dongyu S. Wang, Mingyi Wang, Stefan K. Weber, André Welti, Yusheng Wu, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Antonio Amorim, Imad El Haddad, Markku Kulmala, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Tuukka Petäjä, António Tomé, Sander Mirme, Hanna E. Manninen, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Andreas Kürten, Joachim Curtius, and Jasper Kirkby
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6703–6718, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6703-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6703-2023, 2023
Short summary
An intercomparison study of four different techniques for measuring the chemical composition of nanoparticles
Lucía Caudillo, Mihnea Surdu, Brandon Lopez, Mingyi Wang, Markus Thoma, Steffen Bräkling, Angela Buchholz, Mario Simon, Andrea C. Wagner, Tatjana Müller, Manuel Granzin, Martin Heinritzi, Antonio Amorim, David M. Bell, Zoé Brasseur, Lubna Dada, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Xu-Cheng He, Houssni Lamkaddam, Naser G. A. Mahfouz, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Roy L. Mauldin, Bernhard Mentler, Antti Onnela, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Ana A. Piedehierro, Birte Rörup, Wiebke Scholz, Jiali Shen, Dominik Stolzenburg, Christian Tauber, Ping Tian, António Tomé, Nsikanabasi Silas Umo, Dongyu S. Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, André Welti, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Urs Baltensperger, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Jasper Kirkby, Markku Kulmala, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Douglas R. Worsnop, Imad El Haddad, Neil M. Donahue, Alexander L. Vogel, Andreas Kürten, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6613–6631, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6613-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6613-2023, 2023
Short summary

Cited articles

Adams, P. J. and Seinfeld, J. H.: Predicting global aerosol size distributions in general circulation models, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 107, 4370, https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JD001010, 2002. a
Benson, S. W.: Thermochemical Kinetics: Methods for the Estimation of Thermochemical Data and Rate Parameters, Wiley, New York, ISBN 978-0471067801, 1968. a
Bhattacharyya, N., Lopez, B., DeVivo, J., Russell, D. M., Shen, J., Sommer, E., Almeida, J., Amorim, A., Beckmann, H. M., Busato, M., Caudillo-Plath, L., Chassaing, A., Christoudias, T., Dada, L., El-Haddad, I., Flagan, R. C., Harder, H., Judmaier, B., Sebastian, M. K., Kirkby, J., Klebach, H., Kulmala, M., Kunkler, F., Lehtipalo, K., Liu, L., Mentler, B., Möhler, O., Morawiec, A., Petäjä, T., Rato, P., Rörup, B., Ruhl, S., Scholz, W., Simon, M., Tóme, A., Tong, Y., Top, J., Umo, N. S., Volkamer, R., Weissbacher, J., Xenofontos, C., Yang, B., Yu, W., Zauner-Wieczorek, M., Zgheib, I., Zhang, J., Zheng, Z., He, X.-C., Stolzenburg, D., Schobesberger, S., Curtius, J., and Donahue, N. M.: Isoprene Aerosol Growth in the Upper Troposphere: Application of the Diagonal Volatility Basis Set to CLOUD Chamber Measurements, Environmental Science & Technology Air, 2, 2092–2104, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestair.5c00106, 2025. a, b, c
Bianchi, F., Kurtén, T., Riva, M., Mohr, C., Rissanen, M., Pontus, R., Berndt, T., Crounse, J., Wennberg, P., Mentel, T. F., Wildt, J., Junninen, H., Jokinen, T., Kulmala, M., Worsnop, D., Thornton, J., Donahue, N. M., Kjaergaard, H. G., and Ehn, M.: Highly-oxygenated organic molecules (HOM) from gas-phase autoxidation of organic peroxy radicals: A key contributor to atmospheric aerosol, Chem. Rev., 119, 3472–3509, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.8b00395, 2019. a, b
Bilde, M., Barsanti, K., Booth, A., Cappa, C., Donahue, N. M., McFiggans, G., Krieger, U., Marcolli, C., Topping, D., Ziemann, P., Barley, M., Clegg, S., Dennis-Smither, B., Emanuelsson, E., Hallquist, M., Hallquist, Å., Khlystov, A., Kulmala, M., Mogensen, D., Percival, C., Pope, F., Reid, J., Rosenoern, T., Ribeiro da Silva, M., Salo, K., Soonsin, V., Yli-Juuti, T., Prisle, N., Pagels, J., Rarey, J., Zardini, A., and Riipinen, I.: Saturation vapor pressures and transition enthalpies of low-volatility organic molecules of atmospheric relevance: from dicarboxylic acids to complex mixtures, Chem. Rev., 115, 4115–4156, https://doi.org/10.1021/cr5005502, 2015. a, b
Download
Editorial statement
The Volatility Basis Set (VBS) has become one of the main tools used in atmospheric science for interpreting and modeling the partitioning of gases associated with organic aerosols. In this article the authors extend the VBS to nucleation, showing that it is possible to predict particle formation rates over the full range of tropospheric temperatures, with good agreement with extensive chamber measurements. The tool provides a means to understand the chemical and physical factors affecting nucleation across a wide range of environments over the industrial period and into the future.
Short summary
A new theory has the potential to accurately describe changes to atmospheric particle formation from the pre-industrial to the present and onwards along socioeconomic pathways addressing air pollution and climate. The model places organic nucleation in the context of the Volatility Basis Set and reveals a competition between chemistry, which accelerates as temperature rises, and vapor pressure, which drops as temperature decreases. The model reproduces observations from the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets) chamber.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint