Composition and Particle Size Retrievals for Homogeneous Binary Aerosols

Abstract:

Tropospheric aerosols have widely varying compositions, shapes, and sizes. The ability to measure these physical characteristics, coupled with knowledge about their optical properties, can provide insight as to how these particles might participate in atmospheric processes, including their interaction with light. Over the past several years, our laboratory has been involved in developing methods to determine basic physical properties of laboratory-generated particles based on the analysis of infrared extinction spectra of multi-component aerosols. Here we report the results of a complete study on the applicability of well-known refractive index mixing rules to homogeneous binary liquid organic aerosols in an effort to yield in situ measurements of particle size and composition. In particular, we present results for terpenoid (carvone/nopinone) and long-chain hydrocarbon (squalane/squalene) mixtures. The included image shows model carvone/nopinone extinction spectra that were computed using the Lorentz-Lorenz mixing rule on complex refractive index data for the pure components.