Surface behavior of malonic acid adsorption at the air/water interface.

The presence of organic materials adsorbed to the surfaces of aerosol particles has been demonstrated to be a determining factor in relevant atmospheric processes. Malonic acid is a small, water-soluble organic acid that is common in aerosols and is surface-active. A comprehensive investigation of the adsorption of malonic acid to the air/water interface was accomplished using vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS) and surface tension measurements as functions of concentration and pH. Malonic acid was found to be weakly solvated at the air/water interface, and its orientation as a function of concentration was explored through different VSFS polarization schemes. pH-dependent experiments revealed that the surface-active species is the fully protonated species. Computational analyses were used to obtain depth-specific geometries of malonic acid at the air/water interface that confirm and enrich the experimental results.