Background

Research works on the photooxidation of biogenic compounds and SOA formation have started in the 80’s and since then, a lot of work has been done in this research field, showing at the same time the long-standing, deep interest of the subject. Yet, as underlined in the literature, our comprehension of the detailed chemical and physical processes leading to the secondary organic aerosol that will finally reach the targets (people, vegetation, and environment) is far from being complete and thus, original approaches have to be implemented. It is noteworthy that most of secondary organic aerosols experiments in the literature have been performed in simulation chambers, where it is more difficult to observe the first reaction steps and to investigate the nucleation steps. In this work, we propose an innovative approach by combining parallel experiments in an environmental simulation chamber and in aerosol laminar flow tubes, determining at the same time the chemical, physical and optical aerosol properties with state-of-the-art analytical instruments, and applying the obtained optical characteristics to the measure of aerosols in the real atmosphere.