Surface-Active Organic Material in Air over the Ligurian Sea and over the Eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean.

摘要

Airborne particulate material was collected on glass-fiber filters with high-volume air samplers mounted aboard ships during July 1973 in the Ligurian Sea region of the Mediterranean Sea, and during February 1974 in the Pacific Ocean on a cruise from Panama to Ecuador via the Galapagos Islands. The filters were extracted with chloroform, and the lipid components of the extracts were converted to methyl esters for analysis by gas chromatography. Single fatty components in the range of 12 to 18 carbon atoms in length varied up to a maximum concentration of 50 ng per cubic meter of air when expressed as methyl esters. There was not enough surface-film-forming material found to coat the droplets of a hypothetical fog in the sampled air, but enough material was found to entirely coat the nuclei associated with a fog. Therefore, the initial formation of a fog might be delayed because of a change in the wettability of the nuclei due to the surface film.