Spatial Separation of Individual Substances in Effloresced Crystals of Ternary Ammonium Sulphate/Dicarboxylic Acid/Water Aerosols

This work examines the crystals resulting from the efflorescence of internally mixed aqueous aerosols comprising ammonium sulphate and different dicarboxylic acids. Most studies on the deliquescence of aerosols use previously effloresced aerosols in their experiments. However, during efflorescence a highly supersaturated solution crystallises in a kinetically controlled way unlike the case of thermodynamically controlled crystallisation. Herein the distribution of individual substances within the effloresced crystals is investigated using Raman scanning experiments. The data presented show an intriguingly complex behaviour of these ternary and quarternary aerosols. A spatial separation of substances in the crystals resulting from the efflorescence of previously internally mixed ternary salt/dicarboxylic acid/water aerosol droplets is demonstrated and mechanistic aspects are discussed.