Chemical analysis of atmospheric aerosols

Atmospheric aerosols as prebiotic chemical reactors.

Aerosol particles in the atmosphere have recently been found to contain a large number of chemical elements and a high content of organic material. The latter property is explicable by an inverted micelle model. The aerosol sizes with significant atmospheric lifetimes are the same as those of single-celled organisms, and they are predicted by the interplay of aerodynamic drag, surface tension, ...

Microbiology and atmospheric processes: chemical interactions of primary biological aerosols

This paper discusses the influence of primary biological aerosols (PBA) on atmospheric chemistry and vice versa through microbiological and chemical properties and processes. Several studies have shown that PBA represent a significant fraction of air particulate matter and hence affect the microstructure and water uptake of aerosol particles. Moreover, airborne micro-organisms, namely fungal sp...

Chemical composition of atmospheric aerosols between Moscow and Vladivostok

Water Evaporation From Atmospheric Aerosols

With the recent discovery of the ubiquity of organic material in tropospheric aerosols, it has been postulated that the rates of water evaporation and condensation into the aerosols could be affected by thin surfactant films, which could ultimately affect cloud formation. Nathanson et al. have begun to study the effect of water evaporation from sulfuric acid solutions through the short-chain su...

Atmospheric Aerosols: Formation and Growth

It is widely recognised that the increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane can potentially drive a significant warming process of the earth’s climate. However, a topic of more recent attention is the possibility that increased atmospheric concentrations of aerosol particles might drive a significant radiative forcing process of the planet (see,...