Effect of industrial alkene ozonolysis on atmospheric H₂SO₄ formation

This study has employed the master chemical mechanism (MCM) to investigate the influence of the ozone oxidation pathways in the atmospheric formation of H₂SO₄ from short-chain olefins in industrialized areas. In-situ H₂SO₄ formation data were obtained using a high-resolution chemical ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer, and the simulated H₂SO₄ concentrations calculated using updated parameters for the MCM model exhibited good agreement with observations. In the simulation analysis of different reaction pathways involved in H₂SO₄ formation, hydroxyl radicals were found to dominate H₂SO₄ production during the daytime, while olefin ozone oxidation contributed up to 65% of total H₂SO₄ production during the night-time. A sensitivity analysis of the H₂SO₄ production parameters has revealed a high sensitivity to changes in sulfur dioxide, and a relatively high sensitivity to olefins with fast ozonolysis reaction rates and bimolecular reaction rates of resulting stabilized Criegee Intermediates. A high relative humidity promotes daytime H₂SO₄ formation, but has an inhibiting effect during the night-time due to the different dominant reaction pathways.