Jenna Ditto, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis,
Jenna Ditto, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis,
01/13/2021
With samples taken from an airplane and given an unprecedented level of offline analysis, Yale researchers have produced a highly detailed look at the chemical make-up and transformations of an evolving plume of forest fire smoke - findings that could contribute to a better understanding of air pollution in many parts of the world.
A team of researchers in the lab of Drew Gentner, associate professor of chemical & environmental engineering, performed a highly detailed analysis of an evolving smoke plume from a forest fire. The results show clear evidence for the formation of particle-phase organic compounds containing oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur – relatively little prior work has been done on the structure, formation, and impacts of these compounds. They also found that certain structural features that were part of these compounds increased significantly as the smoke plume evolved over a period of four hours. The study, led by Dr. Jenna Ditto, a former PhD student i