• Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis
  • Vol. 41, Issue 8, 2384 (2021)

Abstract

HOx radicals are important oxidants in the atmosphere. Accurate measurement of atmospheric HOx radicals plays an important role to study the mechanisms of atmospheric photochemical reactions. Gas expansion laser-induced fluorescence technology (FAGE) has been widely used in the field measurement of HOx radicals. Accurate calibration has always been an important prerequisite for the FAGE system to accurately detect atmospheric Hox radicals. A turbulent calibration system producing an accurate concentration of OH and HO2 radicals is developed in this work. It is based on the photolysis of H2O and O2 radiated by 185 nm UV light produced by a low-pressure mercury lamp. HOx radicals generated in the calibration system are uniformly distributed and suitable for system calibration on multiple platforms. The measurement of oxygen and water vapor absorption cross-sections were carried out to accurately calculate the concentration of HOx radicals in the turbulent calibration device. The high-precision cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) system was used to measure the ozone concentration, and a chilled mirror dew point meter was used to correct the concentration of water vapor measured by humidity & temperature probe to improve the calculation of HOx radicals concentration. In order to simplify the field application of the turbulent calibration system and quickly obtain the concentration of HOx radicals, the sensitivity factor of the phototube used to detect the intensity of mercury lamp was detected, and the relationship between mercury light intensity and ozone concentration was measured. There will be a certain loss during the transmission process of the turbulent calibration system. By changing the distance between the mercury lamp and the gas outlet of the calibration device, the loss of HOx radicals during the transmission process is a quantitative measurement in the turbulent calibration system. And then, the built-up turbulent calibration system is applied to the system, which is based on gas expansion laser-induced fluorescence technology (FAGE). The fluorescence signal of OH radical detected in the FAGE system is corrected according to the transmission loss of OH radical in the calibration system. The experimental result shows a good correlation between the corrected OH fluorescence signal and the concentration of OH radicals, which intimates that the turbulent calibration system has good accuracy. And the high accuracy and small size of the turbulent calibration system is more suitable for the field measurement of HOx radicals.