Burial effects of organic coatings on the heterogeneous reactivity of particle-borne benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) toward ozone.

With an aerosol flow tube coupled to an Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS), room temperature (296 ± 3 K) kinetics studies have been performed on the reaction of gas-phase ozone with benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) adsorbed in submonolayer amounts to dry ammonium sulfate (AS) particles. Three organic substances, i.e., bis(2-ethylhexyl)sebacate (BES, liquid), phenylsiloxane oil (PSO, liquid), and eicosane (EC, solid), were used to coat BaP-AS particles to investigate the effects of such organic coatings on the heterogeneous reactivity of PAHs toward ozone. All the reactions of particle-borne BaP with excess ozone exhibit pseudo-first-order kinetics in terms of BaP loss, and reactions with a liquid organic coating proceed by the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) mechanism. Liquid organic coatings did not significantly affect the kinetics, consistent with the ability of reactants to rapidly diffuse through the organic coating. In contrast, the heterogeneous reactivity of BaP was reduced substantially by a thin (4-8 nm), solid EC coating and entirely suppressed by thick (10-80 nm) coatings, presumably because of slow diffusion through the organic layer. Although the heterogeneous reactivity of surface-bound PAHs is extremely rapid in the atmosphere, this work is the first to experimentally demonstrate a mechanism by which the lifetime of PAHs may be significantly prolonged, permitting them to undergo long-range transport to remote locations.