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78646 
Journal Article 
Review 
Water-soluble organics in atmospheric particles: a critical review of the literature and applications of thermodynamics to identify candidate compounds 
Saxena, P; Hildemann, LM 
1996 
Yes 
Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry
ISSN: 0167-7764
EISSN: 1573-0662 
Kluwer Academic Publishers 
DORDRECHT 
24 
1 
57-109 
English 
WOS:A1996UN75500004 
Electric Power Research Institute. Although organic compounds typically constitute a substantial fraction of the fine particulate matter (PM) in the atmosphere, their molecular composition remains poorly characterized. This is largely because atmospheric particles contain a myriad of diverse organic compounds, not all of which extract in a single solvent or elute through a gas chromatograph; therefore, a substantial portion typically remains unanalyzed. Most often the chemical analysis is performed on a fraction that extracts in organic solvents such as benzene, ether or hexane; consequently, information on the molecular composition of the water-soluble fraction is particularly sparse and incomplete. This paper investigates theoretically the characteristics of the water-soluble fraction by splicing together various strands of information from the literature. We identify specific compounds that are likely to contribute to the water-soluble fraction by juxtaposing observations regarding the extraction characteristics and the molecular composition of atmospheric particulate organics with compound-specific solubility and condensibility for a wide variety of organics. The results show that water-soluble organics, which constitute a substantial fraction of the total organic mass, include C2 to C7 multifunctional compounds (e.g., diacids, polyols, amino acids). The importance of diacids is already recognized; our results provide an impetus for new experiments to establish the atmospheric concentrations and sources of polyols, amino acids and other oxygenated multifunctional compounds. 
organic particle composition; water-soluble organics; hygroscopic organics; Henry's law constants; organic solubility; polyols; multifunctional compounds