Ion-induced nucleation rate measurement in SO2/H2O/N2 gas mixture by soft X-ray ionization at various pressures and temperatures

This paper reports the systematic investigation of ion-induced nucleation rate measurement in a SO2/H2O/N2 gas mixture, employing soft X-ray at different pressure and temperature levels. Experiments were conducted using a modified continuous flow gas-generation system employing a soft X-ray ionizer and a particle counter, with an improved integrated online temperature, pressure and a relative humidity (RH) control system. Nucleation rates were measured as a function of SO2 concentration at different levels of RH, pressure (600–970 hPa) and temperature (5–25 °C). The results show that the nucleation rate dependence on SO2 concentration followed a power law, and the slope varied slightly in a range from 1 to 1.26 at different RH levels (15–60%). A positive pressure effect was generally found and a power law was followed with varied scaling for different SO2 concentrations. The trend of an increase in nucleation rate with temperature was consistent with observations in homogenous nucleation experiments, and with the behavior predicted by classical binary nucleation theory. These experimental results will be useful to explain the contribution of ion-induced nucleation in different locations and atmospheric conditions.