Photochemical production of nitrous acid on glass sample manifold surface

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 29; no. 14; pp. 26-1 - 26-4
• Main Authors: Zhou, Xianliang, He, Yi, Huang, Gu, Thornberry, Troy D., Carroll, Mary Anne, Bertman, Steven B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 01.07.2002; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Atmospheric Composition and Structure; Atmospherics; Chemical kinetic and photochemical properties; Constituent sources and sinks; Geophysics; Glass; Instruments and techniques; Manifolds; Nitrogen dioxide; Sampling; Sunlight; Troposphere—composition and chemistry; Troposphere—constituent transport and chemistry; Walls
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1029/2002GL015080

Significant production of HONO was observed on glass sample manifold wall surface when exposed to sunlight during the PROPHET 2000 summer measurement intensive. It is hypothesized that the artifact HONO was produced by photolysis of adsorbed nitric acid/nitrate on the manifold wall surfaces followed by the subsequent reaction of produced NO2 and adsorbed H2O on surface. This observation suggests against the use of an unshielded glass manifold as a sampling inlet for the measurement of atmospheric HONO. It may also have some implications in interpreting field NOx data measured using similar glass inlet manifolds, especially from the clean remote environments where NOx is low and HNO3 is a major fraction of NOy.