Density and elemental ratios of secondary organic aerosol: Application of a density prediction method

Abstract Organic material density is a fundamental parameter in aerosol science, yet direct measurement is not readily available. This study investigates density and elemental ratios of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formed by the oxidation of 22 different volatile organic compounds with a wide range of molecular size (C5∼C15) in an environmental chamber. Reactants with a larger number of carbons yielded SOA with lower density (e.g., β -caryophyllene SOA: 1.22 g cm − 3 ) compared with smaller ones (e.g., phenol SOA: 1.43 g cm − 3 ) consistent with different extents of oxidation of the parent molecule. A recent study proposed a semi-empirical relationship between elemental ratios (O/C and H/C) and organic material density ( Kuwata et al., 2012 ). The prediction method therein is evaluated against the large experimental data set of this study acquired in the UC Riverside/CE-CERT environmental chamber. The predicted particle densities agree with experimental measurements within 12% as stated by Kuwata et al. (2012) except for C6 compounds (benzene, phenol, and catechol). Therefore, the range of application has been further extended to include anthropogenic (aromatic) systems. The effects of nitrogen and sulfur on the density prediction remain unclear.