Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 8479–8498, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-8479-2021 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Importance of secondary organic aerosol formation of α-pinene, limonene, and m-cresol comparing day- and nighttime radical chemistry Anke Mutzel1,a, Yanli Zhang1,2, Olaf Böge1, Maria Rodigast1,b, Agata Kolodziejczyk3,1, Xinming Wang2, and Hartmut Herrmann1 1Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Atmospheric Chemistry Department (ACD), Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany 2State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Protection and Resources Utilization, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China 3Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland anow at: Eurofins Institute Dr. Appelt Leipzig, Täubchenweg 28, 04318 Leipzig bnow at: Indulor Chemie GmbH & Co. KG Produktionsgesellschaft Bitterfeld, 06749 Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany Correspondence: Anke Mutzel (
[email protected]) and Hartmut Herrmann (
[email protected]) Received: 19 November 2019 – Discussion started: 29 January 2020 Revised: 11 March 2021 – Accepted: 6 April 2021 – Published: 4 June 2021 Abstract. The oxidation of biogenic and anthropogenic com- which originated from α-pinene varied between 2 and 80 % pounds leads to the formation of secondary organic aerosol as a function of RH. mass (SOA). The present study aims to investigate α-pinene, Furthermore, SOA from α-pinene revealed pinonic acid as limonene, and m-cresol with regards to their SOA formation the most important particle-phase constituent under day- and potential dependent on relative humidity (RH) under night- nighttime conditions with a fraction of 1–4 %.