Repository logo
 

Detection and identification of Criegee intermediates from the ozonolysis of biogenic and anthropogenic VOCs: comparison between experimental measurements and theoretical calculations

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Campbell, SJ 
Bruschi, M 
Archibald, AT 

Abstract

Ozonolysis of alkenes is a key reaction in the atmosphere, playing an important role in determining the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere and acting as a source of compounds that can contribute to local photochemical “smog”. The reaction products of the initial step of alkene-ozonolysis are Criegee intermediates (CIs), which have for many decades eluded direct experimental detection because of their very short lifetime. We use an innovative experimental technique, stabilisation of CIs with spin traps and analysis with proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, to measure the gas phase concentration of a series of CIs formed from ozonolysis of a range of both biogenic and anthropogenic alkenes in flow tube experiments. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to assess the stability of the CI-spin trap adducts and showed that the reaction of the investigated CIs with the spin trap occurs very rapidly except for the large β-pinene CI. Our measurement method was used successfully to measure all the expected CIs, emphasising that this new technique is applicable to a wide range of CIs with different molecular structures previously unidentified experimentally. In addition, for the first time it was possible to study CIs simultaneously in an even more complex reaction system consisting of more than one olefinic precursor. Comparison between our new experimental measurements, calculations of stability of the CI-spin trap adducts and results from numerical modelling, using the master chemical mechanism (MCM), showed that our new method can be used for quantification of CIs produced in situ in laboratory experiments.

Description

Keywords

Criegee intermediates, VOC, PTR-MS, spin traps, MCM, DFT

Journal Title

Faraday Discussions

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1359-6640
1364-5498

Volume Title

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K039520/1)
European Research Council (279405)
This work was funded by the European Research Council (ERC starting grant 279405) and NERC (NE/K008218/1). ATA thanks NERC for funding through NCAS.