Hygroscopic behavior of multicomponent organic aerosols and their internal mixtures with ammonium sulfate

Water soluble organic compounds (WSOCs) are important components of organics in the atmospheric fine particulate matter. Although WSOCs play an important role in the hygroscopicity of aerosols, water uptake behavior of internally mixed WSOC aerosols remains limited characterization. Here, the hygroscopic properties of single component such as levoglucosan, oxalic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid and phthalic acid and multicomponent WSOC aerosols mainly involving oxalic acid are investigated with the hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (HTDMA). The coexisting hygroscopic species including levoglucosan, malonic acid and phthalic acid have strong influence on the hygroscopic growth and phase behavior of oxalic acid, even suppress its crystallization completely. The interactions between oxalic acid and levoglucosan are confirmed by infrared spectra. The discrepancies between measured growth factors and predictions from Extended Aerosol Inorganics Model (E-AIM) with UNIFAC method and Zdanovskii-Stokes-Robinson (ZSR) approach increase at medium and high relative humidity (RH) assuming oxalic acid in a solid state. For the internal mixture of oxalic acid with levoglucosan or succinic acid, there is enhanced water uptake at high RH due to positive chemical interactions between solutes. Organic mixture has more complex effect on the hygroscopicity of ammonium sulfate than single species. Although hygroscopic species such as levoglucosan accounts for a small fraction in the multicomponent aerosols, they may still strongly influence the hygroscopic behavior of ammonium sulfate by changing phase state of oxalic acid which plays the role of "intermediate" species. Considering the abundance of oxalic acid in the atmospheric aerosols, its mixtures with hygroscopic species may significantly promote water uptake under high RH conditions and thus affect the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity, optical properties and chemical reactivity of atmospheric particles.