SARLEP
In 2016 Hendrik Fuchs received an ERC consolidator grant with the project SARLEP. In this project, the oxidation of organic compounds will be comprehensively investigated for the most important, biogenic organic compounds. The innovative experimental approach will quantify the radical destruction and production rates in experiments in the unique atmosphere simulation chamber SAPHIR. These experiments aim to close the gap between laboratory and field studies. The advantages are: (1) Experiments will be conducted under atmospherically relevant conditions. (2) Radical recycling efficiency will be quantified for the entire chemical system, not just for single reactions. (3) The complexity of the chemical system studied will be increased from single compounds to natural plant emissions.
New innovative instrumentation will be developed for accurate and precise measurements of radical species and oxidized organic compounds. These are also of great interest beyond this project. The results of this project will improve our understanding of atmospheric radical chemistry required for accurately predicting the atmospheric radical budget, the formation of harmful secondary pollutants such as ozone, acids and aerosol and the lifetime of greenhouse gases affecting climate change.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Hendrik Fuchs
Leader of the group "Photochemistry and Radicals" Professor for "Experimental methods for the detection of atmospheric radicals" at the Department of Physics University of Cologne