The surface tension of surfactant-containing, finite volume droplets
Bzdek, Bryan R.; Reid, Jonathan P.; Malila, Jussi; Prisle, Nønne L. (2020-04-01)
Bzdek, B., Reid, J., Malila, J., Prisle, N. (2020) The surface tension of surfactant-containing, finite volume droplets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117 (15), 8335-8343. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915660117
© 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020042219695
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Atmospheric aerosol particles cool Earth’s climate by serving as cloud droplet seeds. This cooling effect represents both the single most uncertain and the largest negative radiative forcing. Cloud droplet activation is strongly influenced by aerosol particle surface tension, which in climate models is assumed equivalent to that of pure water. We directly measure the surface tensions of surfactant-coated, high surface-to-volume ratio droplets, demonstrating that their surface tensions are significantly lower than pure water but do not match the surface tension of the solution from which they were produced and depend on finite droplet size. These results suggest surfactants could potentially significantly modify radiative forcing and highlight the need for a better understanding of atmospheric surfactant concentrations and properties.
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