Nano Carbon Particles in the Atmosphere: Formation and Transformation

ICSE has assembled an interdisciplinary team specializing in combustion, computational chemistry, aerosol dynamics, and analytical chemistry to address the formation and transformation of carbonaceous nanoparticles from diesel engines, which play an important role in two pressing environmental problems - the health impact of fine particles and global warming. Extensive studies on diesel emissions have been directed largely to processes occurring in the engine and in characterizing diesel particulate in the atmosphere. Few studies have been directed to the processes that govern the development of the absorbing properties of soot particles and the processes occurring between the engine exhaust valve through the exhaust plume that have been shown to be a major contributor to the formation of and human exposure to nano-particles. This work will improve our understanding of these processes through complementary theoretical and experimental studies. Please see our roadmap.

Kinetic Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics simulation of particle inception.

C-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of tars extracted from phenanthrene aerosols.