Supervisor: Dr Terry Dillon
Department: Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Labs, University of York
Description:
Much work has been directed towards a detailed fundamental understanding of atmospheric chemistry and its associated impacts on air quality and climate. A significantly understudied, and hence poorly characterised, area is the photolysis rates for oxygenated organics. These reactions are important with respect to atmospheric radical chemistry and have a significant impact on atmospheric photochemical cycles. In this project, the student will explore trends in photolysis rates for a range of oxygenated organic species in the lab (UV-vis. spectroscopy) and in computational experiments (GaussView). The photolysis of homologous series of branched ketones and multifunctional oxygenated organics will be investigated. Particular attention will be paid to important “model” atmospheric species that are photochemical intermediates in the Master Chemical Mechanism (mcm.york.ac.uk) and to molecules finding utility as “new green” solvents.