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This content will become publicly available on May 19, 2023

Title: Survival of newly formed particles in haze conditions
Intense new particle formation events are regularly observed under highly polluted conditions, despite the high loss rates of nucleated clusters. Higher than expected cluster survival probability implies either ineffective scavenging by pre-existing particles or missing growth mechanisms. Here we present experiments performed in the CLOUD chamber at CERN showing particle formation from a mixture of anthropogenic vapours, under condensation sinks typical of haze conditions, up to 0.1 s −1 . We find that new particle formation rates substantially decrease at higher concentrations of pre-existing particles, demonstrating experimentally for the first time that molecular clusters are efficiently scavenged by larger sized particles. Additionally, we demonstrate that in the presence of supersaturated gas-phase nitric acid (HNO 3 ) and ammonia (NH 3 ), freshly nucleated particles can grow extremely rapidly, maintaining a high particle number concentration, even in the presence of a high condensation sink. Such high growth rates may explain the high survival probability of freshly formed particles under haze conditions. We identify under what typical urban conditions HNO 3 and NH 3 can be expected to contribute to particle survival during haze.
Authors:
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Award ID(s):
1801280 1801897 1801574
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10356614
Journal Name:
Environmental Science: Atmospheres
Volume:
2
Issue:
3
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
491 to 499
ISSN:
2634-3606
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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