Cooperative and competitive effects in pH-dependent surface composition of atmospherically relevant organic ions in water

The molecular surface compositions of aerosols can differ considerably from their bulk counterparts, an aspect often overlooked in climate models. This oversight can potentially affect our understanding of the complex interplay between composition, optical characteristics, and their influence on cloud formation and properties. A substantial portion of aerosol mass often includes organic compounds, such as carboxylic acids and alkyl amines. These organic compounds are surface-active and influence surface tension, an important aspect of cloud droplet activation. To better understand the impact of complex organic mixtures on aerosol surfaces, we report a liquid-jet X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) study exploring the pH-dependent surface composition of aqueous solutions of butyric acid and butylamine, both isolated and mixed. Our findings reveal that the surface composition is highly influenced by the ratio between these solutes and their total surface concentration. Around pH 7, where both solutes are charged, the mixed solution demonstrates cooperative surface behavior, leading to an increased presence of organics at the surface. At extreme pH values, where one solute is charged and the other remains neutral, the solutes act independently, with the neutral species dominating the surface enrichment. We also discuss the molecular mechanisms driving these interactions and their broader implications for aerosol behavior in climate models.

Superficial Tale of Two Functional Groups: On the Surface Propensity of Aqueous Carboxylic Acids, Alkyl Amines, and Amino Acids

The gas-liquid interface of water is environmentally relevant due to the abundance of aqueous aerosol particles in the atmosphere. Aqueous aerosols often contain a significant fraction of organics. As aerosol particles are small, surface effects are substantial but not yet well understood. One starting point for studying the surface of aerosols is to investigate the surface of aqueous solutions. We review here studies of the surface composition of aqueous solutions using liquid-jet photoelectron spectroscopy in combination with theoretical simulations. Our focus is on model systems containing two functional groups, the carboxylic group and the amine group, which are both common in atmospheric organics. For alkanoic carboxylic acids and alkyl amines, we find that the surface propensity of such amphiphiles can be considered to be a balance between the hydrophilic interactions of the functional group and the hydrophobic interactions of the alkyl chain. For the same chain length, the neutral alkyl amine has a lower surface propensity than the neutral alkanoic carboxylic acid, whereas the surface propensity of the corresponding alkyl ammonium ion is higher than that of the alkanoic carboxylate ion. This different propensity leads to a pH-dependent surface composition which differs from the bulk, with the neutral forms having a much higher surface propensity than the charged ones. In aerosols, alkanoic carboxylic acids and alkyl amines are often found together. For such mixed systems, we find that the oppositely charged molecular ions form ion pairs at the surface. This cooperative behavior leads to a more organic-rich and hydrophobic surface than would be expected in a wide, environmentally relevant pH range. Amino acids contain a carboxylic and an amine group, and amino acids of biological origin are found in aerosols. Depending on the side group, we observe surface propensity ranging from surface-depleted to enriched by a factor of 10. Cysteine contains one more titratable group, which makes it exhibit more complex behavior, with some protonation states found only at the surface and not in the bulk. Moreover, the presence of molecular ions at the surface is seen to affect the distribution of inorganic ions. As the charge of the molecular ions changes with protonation, the effects on the inorganic ions also exhibit a pH dependence. Our results show that for these systems the surface composition differs from the bulk and changes with pH and that the results obtained for single-component solutions may be modified by ion-ion interactions in the case of mixed solutions.

Measurements of Static and Dynamic Bubble Surface Tension Using a Deformation-Based Microfluidic Tensiometer

The surface tension of bubbles is critical for processes involving mixed liquid-gas systems, from sea spray aerosol generation to firefighting foam aspiration. In particular, the size- and surfactant-dependent time scales of dynamic surface tension decay due to adsorption of surface-active chemicals at the curved interface significantly dictate the multiphase system dynamics. While size-dependent surfactant adsorption and interfacial dynamics have been well characterized for liquid-liquid systems using microfluidic platforms, application of microfluidic methods to liquid-gas systems has received less attention. This work uses a high-throughput microfluidic tensiometer to measure the static and dynamic surface tension of microscale bubbles compared with millimeter bubbles characterized by pendant drop. It is shown that the static surface tension measurements for surfactant-free interfaces with microfluidics show good agreement with pendant drop for most systems. At the same time, its accuracy can be affected by bubble pressure, inertia force at high Re, drag force, bubble expansion, and image processing limitation. In the presence of surfactants, the dynamic surface tension measurements show that both smaller bubbles and higher surfactant concentrations can lead to a much shorter time to reach equilibrium compared with pendant drop, similar to the observation for liquid-liquid interfaces. This work shows the potential of a microfluidic tensiometer to capture early time surface tension decay and accurately measure surface tension even in the presence of Marangoni stress tangential to the interface.

Aerosol Droplet Surface Measurement Methods

Aerosol droplets play a critical role in the development of weather patterns, yet are notoriously difficult to analyze because of their small size, transient nature and potentially complex composition. As a result, there has been a surge in recent years in the development of analysis techniques aimed at the study of aerosol droplets, namely of their surface tension properties, which are thought to play a great role in aerosol/cloud growth and subsequently having an impact on the resulting weather patterns. To capture the state of the field at this key time, we have collected and described some of the most relevant and influential studies, with a focus on those that have had the most impact. This review will present and describe the most used analytical techniques for studying the surface tension of micrometer-sized aqueous droplets, with a focus on historical trends and how the current techniques are posed to revolutionize the field.

Chemical equilibria of aqueous ammonium-carboxylate systems in aqueous bulk, close to and at the water-air interface

Previous studies have shown that the water-air interface and a number of water molecule layers just below it, the surface region, have significantly different physico-chemical properties, such as lower relative permittivity and density, than bulk water. The properties in the surface region of water favor weakly hydrated species as neutral molecules, while ions requiring strong hydration and shielding of their charge are disfavored. In this study the equilibria NH₄⁺(aq) + RCOO^-(aq) ⇌ NH₃(aq) + RCOOH(aq) are investigated for R = C_nH_2n+1, n = 0-8, as open systems, where ammonia and small carboxylic acids in the gas phase above the water surface are removed from the system by a gentle controlled flow of nitrogen to mimic the transport of volatile compounds from water droplets into air. It is shown that this non-equilibrium transport of chemicals can be sufficiently large to cause a change of the chemical content of the aqueous bulk. Furthermore, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been used to determine the relative concentration of alkyl carboxylic acids and their conjugated alkyl carboxylates in aqueous surfaces using a micro-jet. These studies confirm that neutral alkyl carboxylic acids are accumulated in the surface region, while charged species, as alkyl carboxylates, are depleted. The XPS studies show also that the hydrophobic alkyl chains are oriented upwards into regions with lower relative permittivity and density, thus perpendicular to the aqueous surface. These combined results show that there are several chemical equilibria between the aqueous bulk and the surface region. The analytical studies show that the release of mainly ammonia is dependent on its concentration in the surface region, as long as the solubility of the carboxylic acid in the surface region is sufficiently high to avoid a precipitation in/on the water-air interface. However, for n-octyl- and n-nonylcarboxylic acid the solubility is sufficiently low to cause precipitation. The combined analytical and surface speciation studies in this work show that the equilibria involving the surface region are fast. The results from this study increase the knowledge about the distribution of chemical species in the surface region at and close to the water-air interface, and the transport of chemicals from water to air in open systems.

Metatranscriptomic exploration of microbial functioning in clouds

Clouds constitute the uppermost layer of the biosphere. They host diverse communities whose functioning remains obscure, although biological activity potentially participates to atmospheric chemical and physical processes. In order to gain information on the metabolic functioning of microbial communities in clouds, we conducted coordinated metagenomics/metatranscriptomics profiling of cloud water microbial communities. Samples were collected from a high altitude atmospheric station in France and examined for biological content after untargeted amplification of nucleic acids. Living microorganisms, essentially bacteria, maintained transcriptional and translational activities and expressed many known complementary physiological responses intended to fight oxidants, osmotic variations and cold. These included activities of oxidant detoxification and regulation, synthesis of osmoprotectants/cryoprotectants, modifications of membranes, iron uptake. Consistently these energy-demanding processes were fueled by central metabolic routes involved in oxidative stress response and redox homeostasis management, such as pentose phosphate and glyoxylate pathways. Elevated binding and transmembrane ion transports demonstrated important interactions between cells and their cloud droplet chemical environments. In addition, polysaccharides, potentially beneficial for survival like exopolysaccharides, biosurfactants and adhesins, were synthesized. Our results support a biological influence on cloud physical and chemical processes, acting notably on the oxidant capacity, iron speciation and availability, amino-acids distribution and carbon and nitrogen fates.

Water Vapor Binding on Organic Matter-Coated Minerals

Atmospheric water vapor binding to soils is a key process driving water availability in unsaturated terrestrial environments. Using a representative hydrophilic iron oxyhydroxide, this study highlights key mechanisms through which water vapor (i) adsorbs and (ii) condenses at mineral surfaces coated with Leonardite humic acid (LHA). Microgravimetry and vibrational spectroscopy showed that liquid-like water forms in the three-dimensional array of mineral-bound LHA when present at total C/Fe ratios well exceeding ∼73 mg C per g Fe (26 C atoms/nm²). Below these loadings, minerals become even less hydrophilic than in the absence of LHA. This lowering in hydrophilicity is caused by the complexation of LHA water-binding sites to mineral surfaces, and possibly by conformational changes in LHA structure removing available condensation environments for water. An empirical relationship predicting the dependence of water adsorption densities on LHA loadings was developed from these results. Together with the molecular-level description provided in this work, this relationship should guide efforts in predicting water availability, and thereby occurrences of water-driven geochemical processes in terrestrial environments.

Radical oxidation of methyl vinyl ketone and methacrolein in aqueous droplets: Characterization of organosulfates and atmospheric implications

In-cloud processing of volatile organic compounds is one of the significant routes leading to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in the lower troposphere. In this study, we demonstrate that two atmospherically relevant α,β-unsaturated carbonyls, i.e., but-3-en-2-on (methyl vinyl ketone, MVK) and 2-methylopropenal (methacrolein, MACR), undergo sulfate radical-induced transformations in dilute aqueous systems under photochemical conditions to form organosulfates previously identified in ambient aerosols and SOA generated in smog chambers. The photooxidation was performed under sun irradiation in unbuffered aqueous solutions containing carbonyl precursors at a concentration of 0.2 mmol and peroxydisulfate as a source of sulfate radicals (SO₄^-) at a concentration of 0.95 mmol. UV-vis analysis of solutions showed the fast decay of unsaturated carbonyl precursors in the presence of sulfate radicals. The observation confirms the capacity of sulfate radicals to transform the organic compounds into SOA components in atmospheric waters. Detailed interpretation of high-resolution negative ion electrospray ionization tandem mass spectra allowed to assign molecular structures to multiple aqueous organosulfate products, including an abundant isoprene-derived organosulfate C₄H₈SO₇ detected at m/z 199. The results highlight the solar aqueous-phase reactions as a potentially significant route for biogenic SOA production in clouds at locations where isoprene oxidation occurs. A recent modelling study suggests that such processes could likely contribute to 20-30 Tg year^-1 production of SOA, referred to as aqSOA, which is a non-negligible addition to the still underestimated budget of atmospheric aerosol.

Strong enrichment of atmospherically relevant organic ions at the aqueous interface: the role of ion pairing and cooperative effects

Surface affinity, orientation and ion pairing are investigated in mixed and single solute systems of aqueous sodium hexanoate and hexylammonium chloride. The surface sensitive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy technique has been used to acquire the experimental results, while the computational data have been calculated using molecular dynamics simulations. By comparing the single solute solutions with the mixed one, we observe a non-linear surface enrichment and reorientation of the organic ions with their alkyl chains pointing out of the aqueous surface. We ascribe this effect to ion paring between the charged functional groups on the respective organic ion and hydrophobic expulsion of the alkyl chains from the surface in combination with van der Waals interactions between the alkyl chains. These cooperative effects lead to a substantial surface enrichment of organic ions, with consequences for aerosol surface properties.

Shifted equilibria of organic acids and bases in the aqueous surface region

Acid-base equilibria of carboxylic acids and alkyl amines in the aqueous surface region were studied using surface-sensitive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations. Solutions of these organic compounds were examined as a function of pH, concentration and chain length to investigate the distribution of acid and base form in the surface region as compared to the aqueous bulk. Results from these experiments show that the neutral forms of the studied acid-base pairs are strongly enriched in the aqueous surface region. Moreover, we show that for species with at least four carbon atoms in their alkyl-chain, their charged forms are also found to be abundant in the surface region. Using a combination of XPS and MD results, a model is proposed that effectively describes the surface composition. Resulting absolute surface concentration estimations show clearly that the total organic mole fractions in the surface region change drastically as a function of solution pH. The origin of the observed surface phenomena, hydronium/hydroxide concentrations in the aqueous surface region and why standard chemical equations, used to describe equilibria in dilute bulk solution are not valid in the aqueous surface region, are discussed in detail. The reported results are of considerable importance especially for the detailed understanding of properties of small aqueous droplets that can be found in the atmosphere.

Extraction and Characterization of Surfactants from Atmospheric Aerosols

Surface-active compounds, or surfactants, present in atmospheric aerosols are expected to play important roles in the formation of liquid water clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, a central process in meteorology, hydrology, and for the climate system. But because specific extraction and characterization of these compounds have been lacking for decades, very little is known on their identity, properties, mode of action and origins, thus preventing the full understanding of cloud formation and its potential links with the Earth's ecosystems.

In this paper we present recently developed methods for 1) the targeted extraction of all the surfactants from atmospheric aerosol samples and for the determination of 2) their absolute concentrations in the aerosol phase and 3) their static surface tension curves in water, including their Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC). These methods have been validated with 9 references surfactants, including anionic, cationic and non-ionic ones. Examples of results are presented for surfactants found in fine aerosol particles (diameter <1 μm) collected at a coastal site in Croatia and suggestions for future improvements and other characterizations than those presented are discussed.

Particle Size Controls on Water Adsorption and Condensation Regimes at Mineral Surfaces

Atmospheric water vapour interacting with hydrophilic mineral surfaces can produce water films of various thicknesses and structures. In this work we show that mineral particle size controls water loadings achieved by water vapour deposition on 21 contrasting mineral samples exposed to atmospheres of up to ~16 Torr water (70% relative humidity at 25 °C). Submicrometer-sized particles hosted up to ~5 monolayers of water, while micrometer-sized particles up to several thousand monolayers. All films exhibited vibrational spectroscopic signals akin to liquid water, yet with a disrupted network of hydrogen bonds. Water adsorption isotherms were predicted using models (1- or 2- term Freundlich and Do-Do models) describing an adsorption and a condensation regime, respectively pertaining to the binding of water onto mineral surfaces and water film growth by water-water interactions. The Hygroscopic Growth Theory could also account for the particle size dependence on condensable water loadings under the premise that larger particles have a greater propensity of exhibiting of surface regions and interparticle spacings facilitating water condensation reactions. Our work should impact our ability to predict water film formation at mineral surfaces of contrasting particle sizes, and should thus contribute to our understanding of water adsorption and condensation reactions occuring in nature.