Infrared spectroscopy and modeling of co-crystalline CO2·C2H2 aerosol particles. I. The formation and decomposition of co-crystalline CO2·C2H2 aerosol particles.

Aerosol particles composed of co-crystalline CO(2)·C(2)H(2) were generated in a bath gas cooling cell at cryogenic temperatures and investigated with infrared spectroscopy between 600 and 4000 cm(-1). Similar to results obtained for thin films of the co-crystal [T. E. Gough and T. E. Rowat, J. Chem. Phys. 109, 6809 (1998)], this phase was found to be metastable and decomposed into pure CO(2) and pure C(2)H(2). These decomposed aerosols were characterized through (i) a comparison to experimentally prepared aerosols of mixed CO(2) and C(2)H(2) of known architectures and (ii) the modeling of infrared spectra. A likely architecture after decomposition are C(2)H(2)-CO(2) core-shell particles with a disk-like shape. The co-crystalline CO(2)·C(2)H(2) aerosols prior to decomposition are modeled and analyzed in detail in the subsequent paper (Part II).