VOC emission impacts

Emerging urban VOC emissions and their potential to form secondary pollutants

Our goal is to identify emerging urban pollution sources that contribute to ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation in cities around the world including Europe, USA, and China. Historically, combustion sources and in particular motor vehicles have been responsible for the majority of VOC emissions measured in outdoor urban environments that can act as precursors for anthropogenic SOA formation. However, the successful control of vehicular VOC emissions over multiple decades has shifted the urban VOC emission distribution towards other currently understudied pollution sources. Recent work shows that volatile chemical products from household chemicals have emerged as the largest source of petrochemical VOC emissions relative to combustion sources at densely populated US cities (Gkatzelis et al., 2021a,b; Coggon et al., 2021). Volatile chemical product emissions are derived from the use of everyday chemical products, such as personal care products, cleaning agents, coatings, pesticides, printing inks, adhesives, and architectural coatings. Our research group investigates the impacts of these changing urban emissions by performing ground-based and airborne field measurements in cities around the world. Ongoing and future airborne missions include AEROMMA and Zeppelin flights as well as various ground-based observations using the MobiTRAQ.

Influence of heat waves on biogenic emissions and secondary pollution

Our goal is to monitor changes in land surface biogenic VOCs due to the increasing number of heatwaves and droughts and their impacts on atmospheric air quality. Droughts and heatwaves can increase the vegetation stress and insect pests that will in turn increase biogenic VOC emissions. Under increased temperatures and radiation these emissions will more efficiently form ozone and secondary organic aerosol leading to reduced air quality. The Modular Observation Solutions of Earth Systems (MOSES) is a novel observation system that is specifically designed to unravel these impacts. Our team is part of this mission that includes participation in various field campaigns in remote areas to investigate changes in biogenic emissions and their potential to form secondary pollutants. Furthermore, our institute is equipped with SAPHIR-PLUS a chamber coupled to SAPHIR to investigate stressed biogenic emissions and their atmospheric chemical fate in a controlled environment that provides a link between laboratory and field studies.

Contact

Dr. Georgios GkatzelisSenior Scientist Head of group "Organic Trace Gases"Building 05.2 / Room 3027+49 2461/61-6921

Dr. Ralf TillmannSenior Scientist Head of group "Organic Trace Gases"Building 05.2 / Room 3024+49 2461/61-6963