演題概要

2A-PL-1415

PDF

Air Quality Research Using Mass Spectrometers on Aircraft and Other Mobile Platforms

(NOAA CSL)
^oWarneke, Carsten

Air quality is one of the leading causes for pre-mature deaths. In the United States of America alone, over 100,000 people die pre-maturely and there are over 900 billion dollars in damages annually. Air quality studies need to understand and accurately quantify hundreds of pollutants such as volatile organic compounds that produce harmful ozone and particulate matter in the atmosphere. Multiple different mass spectrometric methods are essential tools to measure these pollutants in any air quality study.
In this presentation, we will describe the history and the development of the most commonly used mass spectrometric instruments such as the proton-transfer-reaction mass-spectrometer (PTR-MS) and how these instruments are used in airborne and ground-based air quality studies in our laboratory. We will describe the challenges for accurate and quantitative mass spectrometry measurements on an aircraft that include the temperature and pressure stabilization at aircraft altitudes and calibrations of atmospheric compounds that are sticky and not commercially available.
Lastly, we will present the discoveries from the two most recent NOAA aircraft campaigns, where six time-of-flight mass spectrometers were flown respectively on the DC-8 aircraft to investigate U.S. wildfire and mega city emissions, chemical transformations, and air quality impacts.