Experimental Study on the Dependency of Ice Nucleation Active Surface Site Density on ATD Aerosol Size

In light of the percentage of Earth’s cloud coverage, heterogeneous ice nucleation in clouds is the most important global-scale pathway. More recent parameterizations of ice nucleation processes in the atmosphere are based on the concept of ice nucleation active surface site density (ns). It is usually assumed that ns is independent of time and aerosol size distribution, i.e. that the surface properties of aerosols of the same species do not vary with size. However, the independence of ns on aerosol size for every species has been questioned. This study presents the results of ice nucleation processes of ATD laboratory-generated aerosol (particle diameters of 0 - 3 μm). Ice nucleation in the condensation mode was performed in a Dynamic Filter Processing Cham- ber at temperatures of -18°C and -22°C, with a saturation ratio with respect to water of 1.02. Results show that ns increased by lowering the nucleation temperature, and was also dependent on the particle size. The ns of particles collected on the filters, after a 0.5 μm D50 cut-off cyclone, resulted statistically higher with respect to the values obtained from the particles collected on total filters. The results obtained suggest the need for further investigation of ns dependence of same composition aerosol particles with a view to support weather and climate predictions.

Surface Acidity of Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxide

The surface acidity of synthetic amorphous AI hydroxide was determined by acid/base titration with several complementary methods including solution analyses of the reacted solutions and XRD characterization of the reacted solids. The synthetic specimen was characterized to be the amorphous material showing four broad peaks in XRD pattern. XRD analyses of reacted solids after the titration experiments showed that amorphous AI hydroxide rapidly transformed to crystalline bayerite at the alkaline condition （pH〉10）. The solution analyses after and during the titration Ksp=^aAl^3＋/aH^＋^3 ,was 10^10.3. The amount of consumption of added acid or base during the titration experiment was attributed to both the protonation/deprotonation of dissolved AI species and surface hydroxyl group. The surface acidity constants, surface hydroxyl density and specific surface area were estimated by FITEQL 4.0.