Surfaces of Secondary Organic Aerosol Particles

This proposed project will test the hypothesis that the growth and propensity of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) can be significantly influenced by surface chemistry. This hypothesis will be tested by (1) synthesizing deuterated and unlabeled isoprene and α-pinene and their oxidation products in homogeneous and pure form, (2) preparing SOA particles from them, and (3) providing surface- and bulkspecific spectroscopic, chemical, and mechanistic information for determining how the surfacelocalized species contribute to SOA growth and CCN activity