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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2187</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Insufficient mass spectrometric detection of synthesized peroxy acids from &amp;alpha;-pinene ozonolysis</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tischberger</surname>
<given-names>Markus</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6423-608X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Verma</surname>
<given-names>Rulan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Breinsperger</surname>
<given-names>Johanna</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Schachamayr</surname>
<given-names>David</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lair</surname>
<given-names>Marco</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Opacak</surname>
<given-names>Melanie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gärtner</surname>
<given-names>Peter</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Grothe</surname>
<given-names>Hinrich</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2715-1429</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kaiser</surname>
<given-names>Maximilian</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2097-385X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Stolzenburg</surname>
<given-names>Dominik</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1014-1360</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Materials Chemistry, TU Wien, Getreidemarkt 9, 1060 Vienna, Austria</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Applied Synthetic Chemistry, TU Wien, Getreidemarkt 9, 1060 Vienna, Austria</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>24</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>26</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Markus Tischberger et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2187/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2187/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2187/egusphere-2026-2187.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2187/egusphere-2026-2187.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) are major precursors of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and new particle formation (NPF), and therefore play an important role in the climate system, altering the abundance of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Ozonolysis of the most atmospherically abundant monoterpene, &amp;alpha;-pinene, generates RO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; radicals which undergo autoxidation, resulting in the formation of oxygenated organic molecules (OOMs) with low volatility, an essential step in nucleation and early particle growth. However, quantitative interpretation of widely used mass spectrometric OOM measurements remains limited by reagent-ion selectivity and the lack of authentic monomeric standards, an issue that is particularly important for hydroperoxides and peroxy acids, which constitute a significant fraction of autoxidation products. Here, we synthesize two &amp;alpha;-pinene-derived monomeric OOM standards, peroxy norpinonic acid (PNPA; C&lt;sub&gt;9&lt;/sub&gt;H&lt;sub&gt;14&lt;/sub&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt;) and peroxy pinonic acid (PPA; C&lt;sub&gt;10&lt;/sub&gt;H&lt;sub&gt;16&lt;/sub&gt;O&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt;), and confirm their structures by &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;H and &lt;sup&gt;13&lt;/sup&gt;C NMR. We then evaluate their detectability using a MION-Orbitrap operated with nitrate (NO&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/sup&gt;) and uronium (CH&lt;sub&gt;5&lt;/sub&gt;N&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O&lt;sup&gt;+&lt;/sup&gt;) chemical ionization and compare these gas-phase schemes to heated electrospray ionization (H-ESI). NMR shows that freshly prepared standards are dominated by peroxy acids and contain only a fraction of the corresponding carboxylic acids, whereas Orbitrap measurements consistently yield substantially lower peroxy-to-carboxylic-acid ratios. These ratios vary strongly across ionization modes, with greater apparent peroxy acid loss under harder (de)protonation and improved, though still incomplete, preservation under softer nitrate and uronium adduct formation, indicating that the decomposition originates during ionization. Notably, uronium provides significantly higher sensitivity for these moderately oxygenated compounds, complementing nitrate&amp;rsquo;s strong selectivity toward highly oxygenated molecules (HOMs). Together, our results suggest that peroxy acids formed via &amp;alpha;-pinene autoxidation may be systematically under-quantified by commonly used mass spectrometric approaches, with implications for O:C assignments, volatility-basis-set derivations, and inferred atmospheric process rates of nucleation and early particle growth.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Vienna Science and Technology Fund</funding-source>
<award-id>VRG22-003</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Austrian Science Fund</funding-source>
<award-id>PAT8221324</award-id>
<award-id>P35623-N</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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