Hydroxyl radical tropospheric

NMHC. A large number of hydrocarbons are present in petroleum deposits, and their release during refining or use of fuels and solvents, or during the combustion of fuels, results in the presence of more than a hundred different hydrocarbons in polluted air (43,44). These unnatural hydrocarbons join the natural terpenes such as isoprene and the pinenes in their reactions with tropospheric hydroxyl radical. In saturated hydrocarbons (containing all single carbon-carbon bonds) abstraction of a hydrogen (e,g, R4) is the sole tropospheric reaction, but in unsaturated hydrocarbons HO-addition to a carbon-carbon double bond is usually the dominant reaction pathway. 

Trace-gas Lifetimes. The time scales for tropospheric chemical reactivity depend upon the hydroxyl radical concentration [HO ] and upon the rate of the HO/trace gas reaction, which generally represents the slowest or rate-determining chemical step in the removal of an individual, insoluble, molecular species. These rates are determined by the rate constant, e,g. k2s for the fundamental reaction with HO, a quantity that in general must be determined experimentally. The average lifetime of a trace gas T removed solely by its reaction with HO,... 

The hydroxyl radical plays two essentially different roles (a) as a reactant mediating the transformations of xenobiotics and (b) as a toxicant that damages DNA. They are important in a number of environments (1) in aquatic systems under irradiation, (2) in the troposphere, which is discussed later, and (3) in biological systems in the context of superoxide dismutase and the role of iron. Hydroxyl radicals in aqueous media can be generated by several mechanisms ... 

Reactions in the troposphere are mediated by reactions involving hydroxyl radicals produced photochemically during daylight, by nitrate radicals that are significant during the night (Platt et al. 1984), by ozone and, in some circumstances by 0( P). 

The kinetics of the various reactions have been explored in detail using large-volume chambers that can be used to simulate reactions in the troposphere. They have frequently used hydroxyl radicals formed by photolysis of methyl (or ethyl) nitrite, with the addition of NO to inhibit photolysis of NO2. This would result in the formation of 0( P) atoms, and subsequent reaction with Oj would produce ozone, and hence NO3 radicals from NOj. Nitrate radicals are produced by the thermal decomposition of NjOj, and in experiments with O3, a scavenger for hydroxyl radicals is added. Details of the different experimental procedures for the measurement of absolute and relative rates have been summarized, and attention drawn to the often considerable spread of values for experiments carried out at room temperature (-298 K) (Atkinson 1986). It should be emphasized that in the real troposphere, both the rates—and possibly the products—of transformation will be determined by seasonal differences both in temperature and the intensity of solar radiation. These are determined both by latitude and altitude. 

The transformation of arenes in the troposphere has been discussed in detail (Arey 1998). Their destruction can be mediated by reaction with hydroxyl radicals, and from naphthalene a wide range of compounds is produced, including 1- and 2-naphthols, 2-formylcinnamaldehyde, phthalic anhydride, and with less certainty 1,4-naphthoquinone and 2,3-epoxynaphthoquinone. Both 1- and 2-nitronaphthalene were formed through the intervention of NO2 (Bunce et al. 1997). Attention has also been directed to the composition of secondary organic aerosols from the photooxidation of monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the presence of NO (Eorstner et al. 1997) the main products from a range of alkylated aromatics were 2,5-furandione and the 3-methyl and 3-ethyl congeners. 

Considerable attention has been directed to the formation of nitroarenes that may be formed by several mechanisms (a) initial reaction with hydroxyl radicals followed by reactions with nitrate radicals or NO2 and (b) direct reaction with nitrate radicals. The first is important for arenes in the troposphere, whereas the second is a thermal reaction that occurs during combustion of arenes. The kinetics of formation of nitroarenes by gas-phase reaction with N2O5 has been examined for naphthalene (Pitts et al. 1985a) and methylnaphthalenes (Zielinska et al. 1989) biphenyl (Atkinson et al. 1987b,c) acephenanthrylene (Zielinska et al. 1988) and for adsorbed pyrene (Pitts et al. 1985b). Both... 

Hexachloroethane is quite stable in air. It is not expected to react with hydroxyl radicals or ozone in the atmosphere or to photodegrade in the troposphere (Callahan et al. 1979 Howard 1989). Degradation by photolysis may occur in the stratosphere. 

Tropospheric chemistry is strongly dependent on the concentration of the hydroxyl radical (OH), which reacts very quickly with most trace gases in the atmosphere. Owing to its short boundary layer lifetime ( 1 s), atmospheric concentrations of OH are highly variable and respond rapidly to changes in concentrations of sources and sinks. Photolysis of ozone, followed by reaction of the resulting excited state oxygen atom with water vapour, is the primary source of the OH radical in the clean troposphere ... 

Catalytic hydroxyl radicals dominate the chemistry of the troposphere. These are formed by the following processes ... 

SinghHB. 1977. Atmospheric halocarbons Evidence in favor of reduced average hydroxyl radical concentration in the troposphere. Geophys Res Lett 4 101-104. 

Bunce, N.J., Nakai, J.S., and Yawching, M. A model for estimating the rate of chemical transformation of a VOC in the troposphere by two pathways photolysis by sunlight and hydroxyl radical attack, Chemosphere, 22(3/4) 305-315, 1991. 

The major fate mechanism of atmospheric 2-hexanone is photooxidation. This ketone is also degraded by direct photolysis (Calvert and Pitts 1966), but the reaction is estimated to be slow relative to reaction with hydroxyl radicals (Laity et al. 1973). The rate constant for the photochemically- induced transformation of 2-hexanone by hydroxyl radicals in the troposphere has been measured at 8.97x10 cm / molecule-sec (Atkinson et al. 1985). Using an average concentration of tropospheric hydroxyl radicals of 6x10 molecules/cm (Atkinson et al. 1985), the calculated atmospheric half-life of 2-hexanone is about 36 hours. However, the half-life may be shorter in polluted atmospheres with higher OH radical concentrations (MacLeod et al. 1984). Consequently, it appears that vapor-phase 2-hexanone is labile in the atmosphere. 

No data were located regarding the transformation and degradation of hexachlorobutadiene in air. Based on the monitoring data, the tropospheric half-life of hexachlorobutadiene was estimated by one author to be 1.6 years in the northern hemisphere (Class and Ballschmiter 1987). However, analogy to structurally similar compounds such as tetrachloroethylene indicates that the half-life of hexachlorobutadiene may be as short as 60 days, predominantly due to reactions with photochemically produced hydroxyl radicals and ozone (Atkinson 1987 Atkinson and Carter 1984). Oxidation constants of <10 and 6 (m hr) were estimated for reactions with singlet oxygen and peroxy radicals, respectively (Mabey et al. 1982). 

Armerding, W., M. Spiekermann, and F. J. Comes, OH Multipass Absorption Absolute and In Situ Method for Local Monitoring of Tropospheric Hydroxyl Radicals, . /. Geophys. Res., 99, 1225-1239 (1994). 

Brandenburger, U., T. Brauers, H.-P. Dorn, M. Hausmann, and D. H. Ehhalt, ln-Situ Measurements of Tropospheric Hydroxyl Radicals by Folded Long-Path Laser Absorption during the Field Campaign POPCORN, J. Atmos. Chem., 31, 181-204 (1998). 

Davenport, J. E., and H. B. Singh, Systematic Development of Reactive Tracer Technology to Determine Hydroxyl Radical Concentrations in the Troposphere, Atmos. Environ., 21, 1969-1981 (1987). 

Madronich, S., and C. Granier, Impact of Recent Total Ozone Changes on Tropospheric Ozone Photodissociation, Hydroxyl Radicals, and Methane Trends, Geophys. Res. Lett., 19, 465-467 (1992). 

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