Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 9431–9450, 2011 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/9431/2011/ Atmospheric doi:10.5194/acp-11-9431-2011 Chemistry © Author(s) 2011. CC Attribution 3.0 License. and Physics EVAPORATION: a new vapour pressure estimation methodfor organic molecules including non-additivity and intramolecular interactions S. Compernolle, K. Ceulemans, and J.-F. Muller¨ Belgian Institute for Space-aeronomy, Ringlaan 3, 1180 Brussels, Belgium Received: 21 February 2011 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 29 April 2011 Revised: 26 August 2011 – Accepted: 1 September 2011 – Published: 16 September 2011 Abstract. We present EVAPORATION (Estimation of between the functional groups. The molecules comprising VApour Pressure of ORganics, Accounting for Tempera- secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which is the focus of our ture, Intramolecular, and Non-additivity effects), a method research, are typically polyfunctional. These semi- and low- to predict (subcooled) liquid pure compound vapour pres- volatility molecules originate from the oxidation of volatile sure p0 of organic molecules that requires only molecular organic compound (VOC) and they are of such a large diver- structure as input. The method is applicable to zero-, mono- sity that a full determination of all species is unrealistic, let and polyfunctional molecules. A simple formula to describe alone that for each species a vapour pressure can be mea- 0 log10 p (T ) is employed, that takes into account both a wide sured. Near-explicit volatile organic compound oxidation temperature dependence and the non-additivity of functional mechanisms, like the MCM (Master chemical mechanism groups. In order to match the recent data on functionalised Jenkin et al., 1997; Saunders et al., 2003), BOREAM (Bio- diacids an empirical modification to the method was intro- genic compounds Oxidation and RElated Aerosol formation duced. Contributions due to carbon skeleton, functional Model Capouet et al., 2008; Ceulemans et al., 2010), or the groups, and intramolecular interaction between groups are GECKO-A (Generator for Explicit Chemistry and Kinetics included. Molecules typically originating from oxidation of of Organics in the Atmosphere Aumont et al., 2005) aim to biogenic molecules are within the scope of this method: alde- simulate the complex chemistry leading to oxygenated semi- hydes, ketones, alcohols, ethers, esters, nitrates, acids, per- volatile and low-volatile species. To simulate SOA forma- oxides, hydroperoxides, peroxy acyl nitrates and peracids. tion, such a chemical mechanism can be coupled to a parti- Therefore the method is especially suited to describe com- tioning module, where it is typically assumed that these com- pounds forming secondary organic aerosol (SOA). pounds partition to the condensed phase as a function of their vapour pressure. Frequently used is the equilibrium parti- tioning formalism proposed by Pankow (1994) where the or- ganic aerosol is considered as a well-mixed liquid; although 1 Introduction recent findings (Cappa and Wilson, 2011) suggest that also The (subcooled) liquid pure compound vapour pressure p0 of another mechanism is possible, where the aerosol is rapidly a molecule is an important property influencing its distribu- converted from an absorptive to a non-absorptive phase. Esti- tion between the gas and particulate phase. While the vapour mation methods are therefore desired, that can quickly but re- pressure of hydrocarbons and monofunctional molecules fol- liably calculate vapour pressure from basic molecular struc- lows simple relationships, that of polyfunctional molecules ture information (e.g. a SMILES (Simplified Molecular Input is more difficult to describe. This is partly because the Line Entry Specification) notation). vapour pressure of such molecules is typically lower and For some vapour pressure estimation methods other therefore the experimental error is larger, and partly be- molecular properties are required as input, such as the boiling cause there are more complex interactions (inter- and in- point (Nannoolal et al., 2008; Moller et al., 2008; Myrdal and tramolecular in the liquid, intramolecular in the gas phase) Yalkowsky, 1997). This is an advantage if this boiling point is experimentally known, but it can contribute to the over- all error if it has to be estimated. Several estimation meth- Correspondence to: S. Compernolle ods were developed primarily for the relatively volatile hy- ([email protected]) drocarbons and monofunctional compounds, rather than the Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 9432 S. Compernolle et al.: EVAPORATION: a new vapour pressure estimation method low-volatility polyfunctional molecules. For example, for ences Data Unit (ESDU). We adopted this procedure also for low-volatility compounds, the method of Joback and Reid the other secondary references (such as Yaws, 1994; Poling (1987) overpredicts boiling points (Stein and Brown, 1994; et al., 2001, and the Korean Thermophysical Properties Data- Barley and McFiggans, 2010; Compernolle et al., 2010), and bank, KDB), as we presumed that the lower end of the re- the method of Myrdal and Yalkowsky (1997) tends to overes- ported temperature range rather referred to the melting point, timate vapour pressures (Barley and McFiggans, 2010) when i.e. where a liquid vapour pressure is applicable but the given provided with an experimental boiling point. Another fre- p0(T ) correlation is not necessarily reliable. quently encountered limitation is that not all molecule types Sublimation pressure data was converted to subcooled liq- are covered by the method at hand. Therefore, we recently uid vapour pressure data by taking into account the melting extended some estimation methods to cover e.g. hydroperox- point temperature and enthalpy of fusion (see Sect. 2.2). ides and peracids (Compernolle et al., 2010). Some meth- Boiling points at atmospheric or reduced pressure were as- ods assume additivity in lnp0 with respect to contributions sembled, mostly from Chemistry Webbook of the National from different functional groups (Capouet and Muller¨ , 2006; Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, Linstrom and Pankow and Asher, 2008), but this approximation breaks Mallard) – with important contributions from the compila- down especially for hydrogen bonding functional groups. tions of Weast and Grasselli (1989) and Aldrich (1990)– The method of Moller et al. (2008); Moller (2010) includes from Lide (2000) and Sanchez and Myers (2000). Hence a special term for alcohols and acids to address this issue. most boiling points were from secondary sources. Both the methods of Nannoolal et al. (2008) and Moller et al. The following groups of compounds can be distin- (2008); Moller (2010) include terms to describe group-group guished: non-functionalized hydrocarbons, monofunctional interactions. However, the number of groups needed to de- compounds and polyfunctional compounds. scribe these interactions might become very large, with some parameters constrained by only a few molecules. Also the 2.1.1 Non-functionalized hydrocarbons (alkanes group interactions are described in a non-local way, i.e. the and alkenes) relative position of two functional groups does not matter, contrary to chemical intuition. Finally, recently new room As their vapour pressures are generally considered to be well temperature low vapour pressure data of polyfunctional com- characterised, we made no attempt to retrieve the primary pounds became available – especially diacids and polyfunc- references for these compounds, and considered a single ref- tional diacids (Frosch et al., 2010; Booth et al., 2010, 2011)– erence source per compound as being sufficient. The most and it turned out that the available methods do not predict this important data sources were the books of Poling et al. (2001); data well (Booth et al., 2010, 2011). For these reasons, a new Yaws (1994); Dykyj et al. (1999) and KDB. The data was al- estimation method addressing the above issues is desirable. ways in the form of a pressure-temperature (p0(T )) correla- tion. No aromatic compounds were considered, as they are beyond the scope of this work. 2 Data set 2.1.2 Monofunctional compounds 2.1 Data collection of vapour pressures and boiling points These include aldehydes, ketones, ethers, esters, peroxides, nitrates, peroxy acyl nitrates, alcohols, acids, hydroperox- The data used for the development of EVAPORATION is ides and peracids. For these compounds we tried also to presented in Table 1 of the Supplement. Data can be present collect the primary reference sources. As a rule, all pri- as (i) original experimental data, (ii) a pressure-temperature mary reference sources for the same molecule were taken (p0(T )) correlation – e.g. an Antoine equation or a Wagner into account, and at most one additional secondary ref- equation-, (iii) a boiling point at atmospheric pressure or (iv) erence if (e.g. by chronology) it was clear that the sec- a boiling point at reduced pressure. Although original ex- ondary reference was not based on the primary reference perimental vapour pressure data is preferable over a p0(T ) sources. In addition to the data sources already mentioned for correlation, the error due to the use of a p0(T ) correlation the non-functionalized hydrocarbons, important secondary within its appropriate temperature range is minor compared data sources were ESDU, the compilations of Pankow and to other error sources. As collecting all individual points in co-workers