Particulate organonitrates are formed from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) oxidation by radicals. A portion of semi-volatile gas-phase organonitrates can be incorporate into aerosol by oxidation reactions or portioning, and has been an important component of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Particulate organonitrates study has become one of the important aspects of atmospheric chemistry. Given the large number and variability of chemical constituents, and possible chemical transformations of organonitrates, such characterization presents a key problem for research. Based on recent research progress on particulate organonitrates, this paper summarizes the formation mechanism and quantification method of particulate organonitrates. Profiting from the application of high time resolution techniques, field measurements has become the major approach of particulate organonitrates study. Thermal dissociation-laser induced fluorescence (TD-LIF) and aerosol mass spectrometers (AMS) have been used to quantify and provide the evolution processes of particulate organonirates. Meanwhile, chemical ionization mass spectrometer(CIMS)allows for the determination of molecular ion composition of organonitrates, promising to become the important direction of study of particulate organonirates in future field measurements. To have a deep insight on precursor and atmospheric chemistry processes of particulate organonirates, future research should focus on the combination of field measurement, modeling simulation and laboratory simulation, and these will also lead to a more comprehensive understanding of formation mechanism of particulate organonirates.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Research progress on particulate organonitrates
2.1 Formation mechanism of particle-phase organonitrates
2.2 Measurements and quantification methods of particulate organonitrates
2.3 Formation and environmental effects of particulate organonitrates
3 Conclusion and outlook