Dirty Clouds: Students in Rachel O’Brien’s lab are spending the summer creating aerosols, which they will extract and mix with a combination of brown carbon molecules and cloud water. The goal is to make and study a synthetic version of real-world dirty clouds. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
Laser Power: Nathan Kidwell (left) and his research students are using brown carbon samples to study how the molecules break down when they are exposed to sunlight. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
Making Aerosols: Jacob Shusterman ’19 collects a filter coated in secondary organic aerosol he made in a small chamber in O’Brien’s lab. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
What Brown Carbon Makes: Lydia Dolvin ’20 collects a sample from her photolysis experiments involving brown carbon and secondary organic aerosols. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
Data Mining: Hongmin Yu, a rising junior and chemistry major, is spending her summer in O'Brien's lab, combing through data produced by a mass spectrometer. Photo by Stephen Salpukas
by Adrienne Berard |
July 24, 2018
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Radicals are highly reactive, as they look to pair off or lose their extra electron. That electron scavenger hunt leads radicals to further oxidize other organic molecules in the atmosphere and create a cascade of chemical reactions.
“Hydroxyl radical is a big one we’re watching for,” said Kidwell. The molecule consists of one hydrogen and one oxygen atom and is one of our planet’s most reactive molecules. In fact, it is commonly referred to as the “atmosphere’s detergent.” “It’s so incredibly reactive that if it hits a molecule, it instantly makes a chemical reaction.”
There are plenty of other radicals on Kidwell’s radar. He recently received funding from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund to characterize chemical reactions involving nitric oxide radicals and ambient molecules such as oxygen.
