Physics Commons^™

Extensive Soot Compaction By Cloud Processing From Laboratory And Field Observations, Janarjan Bhandari, Swarup China, Kamal Kant Chandrakar, Greg Kinney, Will Cantrell, Raymond Shaw, Lynn Mazzoleni, Giulia Girotto, Noopur Sharma, Kyle Gorkowski, Stefania Gilardoni, Stefano Decesari, Maria Cristina Facchini, Nicola Zanca, Giulia Pavese, Francesco Esposito, Manvendra K Dubey, Allison C Aiken, Rajan K Chakrabarty, Hans Moosmüller, Timothy B Onasch, Rahul A Zaveri, Barbara V Scarnato, Paulo Fialho, Claudio Mazzoleni

Michigan Tech Publications

Soot particles form during combustion of carbonaceous materials and impact climate and air quality. When freshly emitted, they are typically fractal-like aggregates. After atmospheric aging, they can act as cloud condensation nuclei, and water condensation or evaporation restructure them to more compact aggregates, affecting their optical, aerodynamic, and surface properties. Here we survey the morphology of ambient soot particles from various locations and different environmental and aging conditions. We used electron microscopy and show extensive soot compaction after cloud processing. We further performed laboratory experiments to simulate atmospheric cloud processing under controlled conditions. We find that soot particles sampled after …