Ice Nucleation Activity and Effloresced Particle Morphology of Model Marine Aerosol Systems in a Microfluidic Device
MARGARET HOUSE, Cari Dutcher,
University of Minnesota Abstract Number: 160
Working Group: Aerosol Physics
AbstractAtmospheric aerosol particles effect on climate and human health has been studied since the 19th century, and yet many aspects of their impacts are still unknown. Both composition and physical phase of an aqueous atmospheric aerosol particle are important in determining its role in climate. The ice nucleation (IN) activity and the role of biological particles biological particles like bacteria and bacterial fragments within aqueous aerosol particles as ice nucleating particles (INP) is of great interest to atmospheric and climate studies, due to the ability of INP type to change the resultant optical properties of clouds. Microfluidic methods have recently emerged in the field of atmospheric aerosol science as a companion to other single particle methods for measuring phase-change behavior as well as IN activity. Such techniques, which utilize flow-through or static droplets in microfluidic channels, can have a number of key advantages in the observation of some physiochemical phenomena. Microfluidic channels can be used to readily study both evaporative phase transitions and freezing behavior on a single droplet level. In this study, the freezing behavior and final effloresced particle morphology of model marine aerosol solutions is studied in microfluidic devices for the purpose of linking composition, crystal morphology, and IN activity.