Atmospheric Chemistry of Multifunctional Compounds

The atmospheric photochemistry of hydrocarbons plays important roles in issues such as photochemical smog formation (with links to air quality and health) and to aerosol formation (with links to air quality, health and climate). Whilst there have been many studies on the atmospheric oxidation of important simple species such as isoprene (a key biogenic emission) or aromatics (important anthropogenic emissions), much less is known about the chemistry of multifunctional species which are the focus of this project.
An important example would be monoethanolamine (MEA) which contains both OH and NH2 functional groups and proposed as an important material in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). How do these two functional groups interact to determine the overall reactivity of this species? For MEA there have been some studies at Leeds that start to answer these questions, but for most multifunctional species, whether they be primary emissions such as MEA, or formed in the atmosphere from the oxidation of simpler species, no information is available.
Given the huge number of multifunctional species an experimental determination of each compound is unfeasible; we need to combine experimental effort with an accurate predictive capability. Structure Activity Relationships (SAR) are currently used to predict reaction rates, but reliable SAR for multifunctional species do not exist.
There are several strands to this project:
1. The generation of a range of test-bed data on the reactions of OH with a range of multifunctional compounds.
2. Construction of SAR for important multifunctional species based on your own measurements and literature surveys
3. Testing SAR predictions against measured OH rate coefficients and site specific data obtained from chamber measurements.
There should be opportunities to interact with experimentalists and modellers in Leeds and York, ensuring you gain a wide range of skills to take into employment or further research.