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| UNIVERSITY EDUCATION : Faculty | Courses | Fellowships | Students | Graduates | Partners |
New Mass Spectrometric Methods for the Analysis of Organic Aerosol in the Atmosphere |
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Aerosols, microscopically small particles suspended in air, are an important species in the Earth's atmosphere and influence both climate and air quality. Aerosols impact the Earth's climate both directly through the scattering and absorption of radiation, and indirectly through their role as cloud-condensation nuclei. Also, aerosols are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs of people and have been linked to severe short- and long-term health effects. A large fraction (~50%) of atmospheric aerosol consists of organic material. Organic aerosol is emitted from a number of different natural and man-made sources and can also be formed in the atmosphere from the photo-oxidation of gas-phase precursors. The magnitude of all these sources is highly unknown at present. In this project, we will use newly developed instruments for chemical analysis of aerosol to address some of the key questions on the sources and formation of its organic component. The instruments are based on thermal desorption or evaporation of the aerosol followed by the detection of the organic vapors with mass spectrometry. Laboratory work will be aimed at characterizing the partitioning of semi-volatile organic compounds between the aerosol and gas phases as a function of temperature and dilution. Field studies will be aimed at source attribution and at studying the processes that form organic aerosol in the atmosphere, particularly in polluted environments. |
NOAA ESRL Contact CIRES Contact |
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