Atmospheric Lifecycle of Highly Oxygenated Multifunctional Compounds

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This project is focused on investigations of the multiphase dynamics and chemistry of highly oxygenated multifunctional compounds (HOMs) in the atmosphere and will provide a key missing piece in the current understanding of the atmospheric lifecycle of HOMs, their identities, abundance, and reactive chemistry.

The results of this research will aid in predictions of how the reactive chemistry of HOMs modifies the atmospheric composition and will provide crucial information needed for the accurate simulation of fine particles and their interactions with clouds in the atmosphere. It will also produce a dataset useful for understanding the toxicity of HOMs and their impact on human health.

The main objectives of this project are to: (1) Characterize the molecular signature and abundance of HOMs in organic aerosols from both biogenic and anthropogenic sources; (2) Examine how the composition and distribution of HOMs respond to varying nitrogen oxides (NOx) levels; and (3) Quantify the lifetimes of HOMs upon gas-particle conversion and elucidate the aging and removal pathways that HOMs undergo in the particle phase. The results will be applied to address the following scientific questions: (a) What are the molecular forms by which HOMs are present in the particle phase and the linkage with the HOMs identified in the gas phase? (b) How long could HOMs survive upon gas-particle conversion? (c) What are the aging pathways HOMs undergo in the particle phase? (d) To what extent does the HOMs aging affect the yield and makeup of the SOA produced? and (e) How will the particulate HOMs respond to reducing anthropogenic NOx emissions?

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.