Primary and Secondary Aerosol Investigation from Different Sea-Waters in the Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a special marine environment characterized by low biological activity and high anthropogenic pressure. It is often difficult to discriminate the contribution of Primary and Secondary Aerosol formed at the sea-air interface from background level of the aerosol. We therefore decided to study the sea-air exchanges in a controlled environment provided by a 2m³simulation chamber, using freshly collected sea-water samples from the SEMEX site (43°15’64 N, 05°20’01 E) near Marseille bay.

Two types of experiments were conducted for 4 weeks testing 3 different sea-waters. Primary sea-aerosol was generated by bubble-bursting method, then introduced in the simulation chamber and exposed to atmospheric oxidants (O₃, OH) and light to simulated primary aerosol aging. A second set of experiments focused on secondary particle formation upon illumination and/or ozone exposure of the sea-water surface (15l of sea-water were deposited in a pyrex container located inside the simulation chamber). New particle formation was only observed for relatively high DOC level of the sea-water sample.

Particles detection and analysis was followed by a PSM (1nm size), a CPC (2.5nm size), a SMPS (granulometry), a CCN chamber for hygroscopicity studies, a TOF-AMS (Aerodyne) for chemical analysis of the sub-micrometer fraction. Off-line analysis included TEM-EDX samples for morphology and size distribution studies and a hybrid quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometer (Thermo Fischer) for the molecular identification of the organic fraction. VOCs were measured on-line by PTR-HR-MS.

The seawater samples were filtered at 60µm before use and were daily analyzed for chemical (colored dissolved organic matter, particulate matter and related polar compounds, transparent polysaccharides and nutrients concentration) and biological (chlorophyll a, virus, phytoplankton and zooplankton) analyses.