EES Air Pollution Seminar: Novel Mass Spectral Tools for Organic Gases and Particles in Indoor and Outdoor Air

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Dr. Sohyeon Jeon, Postdoctoral Researcher, Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract: Particulate matter (PM) plays a critical role in visibility, hydrological cycles, climate change, and human health. Organic aerosols (OA), which make up 20-50% of PM, have a complex chemical composition influenced by their sources and atmospheric processes. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), a major component of OA, exist in both gas and particle phases, with their distribution influenced by environmental conditions, adding to the complexity of OA. To enhance analysis of these complex chemical compounds of OA, various mass spectrometry have been developed from bulk to molecular levels. Techniques such as Aerosol Mass Spectrometry (AMS), Thermal Desorption Aerosol Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (TAG), and multi-turn Time-Of-Flight mass spectrometry (InfiTOF) have been developed to investigate characteristics of OA in various environments. These advancements have highlighted the need for more efficient tools for data acquisition and data processing. In this talk, I will introduce several database and data processing tools developed to meet these needs. First, a mass spectral database and comparison tool for AMS and the Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) enables users to visually and efficiently compare their data with existing studies. Second, the ‘AutoPMF’ tool automates the quantification of chemical compounds in large GC-MS datasets from TAG using positive matrix factorization, reducing data-processing time and manual inspection. Additionally, a guide tool for optimizing resolution in InfiTOF mass spectrometer operations will be introduced. Finally, I will present findings on the impact of particle type on the phase partitioning of SVOCs in indoor environments through laboratory experiments using one of these tools.

Bio: Sohyeon Jeon is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D in Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, where her research focused on the development of novel mass spectral data acquisition and data analysis tools for characterizing organic compounds in aerosols. Currently, she is involved in Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT) where she works on operations and data analysis. Her work contributes to synthesizing and conducting integrated analysis of multidimensional mass spectrometry datasets and complementary measurements to investigate the diverse sources, processing, and properties of ambient aerosols across all the sites in the network.