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Johnston, Murray, University of Delaware

"The Ins and Outs of Aerosol Chemistry: What happens in the gas phase, the particle phase, and across the interface, and why it matters."

Airborne nanoparticles strongly influence climate and human health. Understanding these impacts requires knowledge of how particles form and grow. The first part of this presentation will draw from recent work by our group to elucidate chemical mechanisms of nanoparticle growth from a small molecular cluster to a particle that is large enough to serve as a seed for cloud droplet formation. The second part of this presentation will focus specifically on the unique environment of aqueous aerosol particles, which can undergo chemical processes that are significantly different from bulk solution. These processes have important implications for how ambient particles grow, and they also help us better understand analytical measurements that rely on the formation of nano- and microdroplets.