UCI to Study Ills in the Air
UC Irvine has won a $7.5-million federal grant to study how certain chemical reactions in the atmosphere influence air pollution and climate change.
The five-year National Science Foundation grant has allowed for the establishment of an Environmental Molecular Science Institute at UCI -- one of seven such institutes at universities nationwide, including Princeton, Stanford and Notre Dame.
Researchers will study the molecular changes that occur in the “interface” where gases in the air meet liquid and solid surfaces -- such as windows, particles of diesel soot and cooking fat. One of the most intriguing of these chemical boundaries is the surface of liquid droplets in the atmosphere -- fog, rain and dew -- where the rapid molecular change between gas and liquid makes measuring chemical reactions difficult.
By understanding what happens in these interfaces between surfaces -- chemical reactions that are different than when substances fully combine -- scientists hope to better understand how toxic airborne substances and clouds are created and modified.
“People didn’t pay much attention to [what happened on] surfaces before. We think that was a mistake,” said Sergey Nizkorodov, an assistant professor of chemistry who is working on the project. “The measurements we’re doing now, we couldn’t do 10 years ago. The technology was not up to it.”
Among that technology: equipment that helps scientists better isolate particles in the lab without contamination, and more powerful computers that can test the validity of what’s learned there and suggest other experiments.
Ultimately, understanding what happens when surfaces connect could suggest ways to reduce air pollution and global climate change.
“In order to reduce air pollution, you have to understand all of the processes involved,” said Barbara Finlayson-Pitts, the institute’s director and a UCI chemistry professor. “That’s what we’re all about. We’re studying a piece of the puzzle that we have to know.”
Researchers from UCI’s departments of chemistry and mechanical and aerospace engineering will collaborate with counterparts in the Czech Republic, Russia and New Zealand, and scientists at U.S. Department of Energy labs.
