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NSF Grant Funds Pollution Research in Paris

If chemistry professor Lelia Hawkins has her head in the clouds, it鈥檚 on purpose. Her research seeks to understand how air pollution affects climate and anthropogenic climate change. One method of studying this is via simulation of brown carbon compounds in an atmospheric cloud chamber.

Since 2015, Hawkins has been using discretionary funds to take students to perform research at the Multiphase Atmospheric Experimental Simulation Chamber (CESAM), located in Cr茅teil, France, a suburb of Paris.

鈥淢y former students who traveled to Paris worked really hard and were completely dedicated to the project,鈥� Hawkins says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 because of their hard work and talent that my collaborators were interested in pursuing more work together.鈥�

Hawkins believes she also has her former students to thank for a recent grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which will support her project 鈥淐ollaborative Research: RUI: IRES鈥擳rack I: Brown Carbon Aerosol Formation by Photooxidation of Phenolic Compounds in Nanodroplets.鈥�

鈥淚t is because of their excellent research accomplishments that NSF was willing to fund this work for three years,鈥� she says.

鈥淭he goals of the project are to better characterize reactions of common atmospheric compounds in cloud water, particularly pollutants that have the potential to create brown products,鈥� Hawkins says. Brown products are light-absorbing, organic aerosol particles that have important negative effects on both climate and on human health.

The CESAM chamber facility is unique in that it can generate photochemical 鈥渟mog鈥� and multiple cloud events in the same experiment, and is thus essential to conducting the research under realistic conditions. 鈥淲e know that the color of air pollution has a great impact on regional and global temperatures,鈥� Hawkins says, 鈥渁nd recent work has shown that some pollutants can change their color (and therefore their importance in the climate system) during reactions in cloud water. So, we鈥檒l be using a chamber designed specifically to mimic the process of cloud formation and evaporation.鈥�

The three-year grant will allow two 无忧视频 students per year to live and work in Paris for a month. Research will be conducted in English, Hawkins says, 鈥渢hough I will work with my students to learn enough French to get around and enjoy the city of Paris.鈥�