Kinetics and impacting factors of HO<sub>2</sub> uptake onto submicron atmospheric aerosols during a 2019 air quality study (AQUAS) in Yokohama, Japan

Abstract. HO2 uptake kinetics onto ambient aerosols play pivotal roles in tropospheric chemistry but are not fully understood. Field measurements of aerosol chemical and physical properties should be linked to molecular level kinetics; however, given that the HO2 reactivity of ambient aerosols is low, traditional analytical techniques are unable to achieve this goal. We developed an online approach to precisely investigate (i) the HO2 reactivity of ambient gases and aerosols and (ii) HO2 uptake coefficients onto ambient aerosols (ɣ) during 2019 air quality study (AQUAS) in Yokohama, Japan. We identified the effects of individual chemical components of ambient aerosols on ɣ. The results verified in laboratory studies on individual chemical components: transition metals play a key role in HO2 uptake processes and chemical components indirectly influence such processes (i.e., through altering aerosol surface properties or providing active sites), with smaller particles tending to yield higher ɣ values than larger particles owing to the limitation of gas phase diffusion is smaller with micrometer particles and the distribution of depleting species such as transition metal ions is mostly distributed in accumulation mode of aerosol. The modeling of ɣ utilized transition metal chemistry derived by previous studies, further confirming our conclusion. However, owing to the high NO concentrations in Yokohama, peroxy radical loss onto submicron aerosols has a negligible impact on O3 production rate and sensitivity regime.