Title:

Investigation of the Surface Tension of Saltwater Solutions to Better Understand Sea Salt Aerosols

Aerosols, which are tiny particles in the atmosphere, are important to understand because clouds are formed due to the activation of aerosol particles, referred to as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Köhler curves can be used to predict the critical radius and supersaturation at which activation occurs. Sea salt aerosols in particular matter because they contribute to up to 65% of CCN in the high southern latitudes and up to 30% elsewhere. Clouds can help counteract global warming by scattering incoming radiation; therefore, understanding their formation is essential for creating more accurate climate models. This work seeks to expand this knowledge by investigating the impact of surface tension on the CCN activation efficiency of sea salt aerosols by comparing solutions of NaCl, commercially available evaporated sea salt with the biological material removed, and natural evaporated sea salt. A Du Noüy tensiometer was used to measure the surface tension, which was then used to generate the corresponding Köhler curve. Natural seawater was found to have the highest surface tension as well as the most variation, and had the highest critical supersaturation and the lowest critical radius. This might be due to the presence of biological material or ions other than Na+ and Cl-.

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