Indoor Emission, Oxidation, and New Particle Formation of Personal Care Product Related Volatile Organic Compounds.

Personal care products (PCPs) contain diverse volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and routine use of PCPs indoors has important implications for indoor air quality and human chemical exposures. This chamber study deployed aerosol instrumentation and two online mass spectrometers to quantify VOC emissions from the indoor use of five fragranced PCPs and examined the formation of gas-phase oxidation products and particles upon ozone-initiated oxidation of reactive VOCs. The tested PCPs include a perfume, a roll-on deodorant, a body spray, a hair spray, and a hand lotion.

Effects of drought and recovery on soil volatile organic compound fluxes in an experimental rainforest.

Drought can affect the capacity of soils to emit and consume biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Here we show the impact of prolonged drought followed by rewetting and recovery on soil VOC fluxes in an experimental rainforest. Under wet conditions the rainforest soil acts as a net VOC sink, in particular for isoprenoids, carbonyls and alcohols.

Chiral monoterpenes reveal forest emission mechanisms and drought responses.

Monoterpenes (CH) are emitted in large quantities by vegetation to the atmosphere (>100 TgC year), where they readily react with hydroxyl radicals and ozone to form new particles and, hence, clouds, affecting the Earth's radiative budget and, thereby, climate change. Although most monoterpenes exist in two chiral mirror-image forms termed enantiomers, these (+) and (-) forms are rarely distinguished in measurement or modelling studies. Therefore, the individual formation pathways of monoterpene enantiomers in plants and their ecological functions are poorly understood.

Absolute optical chiral analysis using cavity-enhanced polarimetry.

Chiral analysis is central for scientific advancement in the fields of chemistry, biology, and medicine. It is also indispensable in the development and quality control of chiral compounds in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Here, we present the concept of absolute optical chiral analysis, as enabled by cavity-enhanced polarimetry, which allows for accurate unambiguous enantiomeric characterization and enantiomeric excess determination of chiral compounds within complex mixtures at trace levels, without the need for calibration, even in the gas phase.

Ecosystem fluxes during drought and recovery in an experimental forest.

Severe droughts endanger ecosystem functioning worldwide. We investigated how drought affects carbon and water fluxes as well as soil-plant-atmosphere interactions by tracing CO and deep water HO label pulses and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in an enclosed experimental rainforest. Ecosystem dynamics were driven by different plant functional group responses to drought.

Heat stress increases the use of cytosolic pyruvate for isoprene biosynthesis.

The increasing occurrence of heatwaves has intensified temperature stress on terrestrial vegetation. Here, we investigate how two contrasting isoprene-emitting tropical species, Ficus benjamina and Pachira aquatica, cope with heat stress and assess the role of internal plant carbon sources for isoprene biosynthesis in relation to thermotolerance. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report isoprene emissions from P.

Compartment specific chiral pinene emissions identified in a Maritime pine forest.

To track unknown sources and sinks of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) inside forest canopies we measured diel cycles of VOC exchanges in a temperate maritime forest at the branch, stem and ground level with special focus on the chiral signatures of pinenes. All compartments released day and night α- and β-pinene as major compounds. In addition, strong light dependent emissions of ocimene and linalool from branches occurred during hot summer days.