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    Uptake of SO2 into Sulfuric Acid Droplets through the Oxidation by NO2 under Venus-Analogous Conditions

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    Ubukata(2025a).pdf (2.318Mb)
    Authors
    Ubukata, S.
    Karyu, H.
    Nakagawa, H.
    Koyama, S.
    Minamikawa, R.
    Kuroda, T.
    Terada, N.
    Gen, M.
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    Discipline
    Physical sciences
    Subject
    Venus
    sulfuric acid
    sulfur dioxide oxidation
    nitrogen dioxide
    reactive uptake
    Audience
    Scientific
    Date
    2025
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Description
    Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is the primary sulfur-bearing gas on Venus and plays a pivotal role in its atmospheric chemistry. Observations show that SO2 concentration decreases by 3 orders of magnitude from the bottom to the top of the cloud layers. However, this SO2 depletion cannot be explained by gas-phase chemistry alone, suggesting a missing SO2 sink within the cloud layers. Here, we show for the first time that SO2 uptake and subsequent oxidation within droplets could serve as an additional sink in the Venusian cloud layers. We performed laboratory experiments to examine the uptake of SO2 by sulfuric acid (H2SO4) droplets of ∼10 μm in the presence of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) as an oxidant. We find that the size growth of H2SO4 droplets occurs only when both SO2 and NO2 are present, indicating the SO2 oxidation by NO2 in H2SO4 droplets. The growth rate increases with NO2 concentration, and the reactive uptake coefficient of SO2, γSO2, is parameterized by the number density of NO2 (cm–3), nNO2, as log10γSO2 = 0.572 × log10nNO2 – 15.03. Numerical simulations suggest that γSO2= 10–7 is required to reproduce the observed SO2 concentration at the top of the cloud layer. Our results underscore that the reactive uptake of SO2 by H2SO4 droplets may play an important role in SO2 depletion in the cloud layers, warranting future observations of oxidants in the Venusian atmosphere.
    Citation
    Ubukata, S.; Karyu, H.; Nakagawa, H.; Koyama, S.; Minamikawa, R.; Kuroda, T.; Terada, N.; Gen, M. (2025). Uptake of SO2 into Sulfuric Acid Droplets through the Oxidation by NO2 under Venus-Analogous Conditions. , ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, Vol. 9, Issue 6, 1525-1535, DOI: 10.1021/acsearthspacechem.5c00016.
    Identifiers
    uri: https://orfeo.belnet.be/handle/internal/14125
    doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.5c00016
    url:
    Type
    Article
    Peer-Review
    Yes
    Language
    eng
    Links
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