Metals from spacecraft reentry in stratospheric aerosol particles.

Large increases in the number of low earth orbit satellites are projected in the coming decades [L. Schulz, K.-H.

Unexpected electrophiles in the atmosphere - anhydride nucleophile reactions and uptake to biomass burning emissions.

Biomass burning is a significant contributor to atmospheric pollution, its emissions have been found to have adverse impacts on climate and human health. Largely, these impacts are dictated by how the composition of the emissions changes once emitted into the atmosphere. Recently, anhydrides have been identified as a significant fraction of biomass burning emissions, however, little is known about their atmospheric evolution, or their interactions within the burn plume.

Model Atmospheric Aerosols Convert to Vesicles upon Entry into Aqueous Solution.

Aerosols are abundant on the Earth and likely played a role in prebiotic chemistry. Aerosol particles coagulate, divide, and sample a wide variety of conditions conducive to synthesis. While much work has centered on the generation of aerosols and their chemistry, little effort has been expended on their fate after settling.

Emerging investigator series: ozone uptake by urban road dust and first evidence for chlorine activation during ozone uptake by agro-based anti-icer: implications for wintertime air quality in high-latitude urban environments.

High-latitude urban regions provide a unique and complex range of environmental surfaces for uptake of trace pollutant gases, including winter road maintenance materials (, gravel, rock salts, and anti-icer, a saline solution applied to roads during winter). In an effort to reduce the negative environmental and economic impacts of road salts, many municipalities have turned to agro-based anti-icing materials that are rich in organic material. To date, the reactivity of both anti-icer and saline road dust with pollutant gases remain unexplored, which limits our ability to assess the potential impacts of these materials on air quality in high-latitude regions.

Significant Variability in the Photocatalytic Activity of Natural Titanium-Containing Minerals: Implications for Understanding and Predicting Atmospheric Mineral Dust Photochemistry.

The billions of tons of mineral dust released into the atmosphere each year provide an important surface for reaction with gas-phase pollutants. These reactions, which are often enhanced in the presence of light, can change both the gas-phase composition of the atmosphere and the composition and properties of the dust itself. Because dust contains titanium-rich grains, studies of dust photochemistry have largely employed commercial titanium dioxide as a proxy for its photochemically active fraction; to date, however, the validity of this model system has not been empirically determined.