Measuring the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation potential of common consumer chemical products is important for understanding the impacts of product use on ambient air quality. We performed controlled chamber experiments measuring SOA yields from reactions of ozone with common consumer products from three categories: perfumes, deodorants, and cleaning liquids. SOA mass yields ranged between 0.2% and 7% with no seed in the chamber and between 3% and 17% with inorganic seed in the chamber. The average yield across all experiments was 4%. We used GC-MS to measure the concentration of several terpenes in our tested products. Limonene concentrations in the VCPs ranged from 0.1% to 0.3% and beta-pinene concentrations ranged from 0.4% to 0.7%. The effective density (ρeff) of SOA formed via heterogeneous nucleation onto ammonium sulfate seed ranged from 1.47 ± 0.01 g cm–3 to 1.58 ± 0.14 g cm–3. The ρeff of SOA formed via homogeneous nucleation exhibited more variation, ranging from 1.08 ± 0.02 g cm–3 to 1.49 ± 0.03 g cm–3. Our results demonstrate significant differences in the composition and SOA formation potential of common VCP categories.
Schwink et al. (2026) studied this question.