Year
2022-2023
Location
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Funding Sources
North Carolina Sea Grant Mini Grant Program
Scope: In collaboration with Jason Surratt's lab group, experiments simulating the atmospheric oxidation of cyanobacterial volatile metabolites (geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol) demonstrated significant secondary organic aerosol formation (SOA). Aerosol was chemically characterized and tentative molecular tracers of cyanobacterial-derived SOA were proposed for their use in field samples.
Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from Cyanobacterial-Derived Volatile Organic Compounds
This study was published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry in 2023.
The study can be accessed here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.3c00177.
Key Findings
Geosmin and 2-Methylisoborneol are precursors to SOA
Following hydroxyl radical oxidation, both compounds yielded significant aerosol mass.
7 tentative chemical tracers were identified for both geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol
These 14 compounds were characterized via RPLC/ESI-HR-QTOFMS and chemical structures were proposed.
SOA derived from 2-MIB was identified in PM2.5 in the airshed of the Bay Delta, CA
Two tentative tracers derived from 2-MIB, were measured in aerosol during toward the end of an active bloom.