Collaborative Research: Reactions and Fate of Amines in the Atmosphere Emitted from Animal Feeding Operations

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Amines are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted to the atmosphere from a number of sources including intense emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs). In the atmosphere, amines act as precursors for aerosols, but the fates of amines released incident to large-scale food production have not been studied in a quantitative manner to determine their importance in atmospheric gas and aerosol chemistry. This project will take an integrated laboratory/field approach to identify and quantify the impact of amines and the role they play in aerosol formation reactions. During the first year, development of methodology for analyzing amine-derivatives will be accomplished and environmental chamber studies of reaction rates of amines with atmospheric oxidants will begin. Year two of the research plan will continue chamber studies with a goal of identifying condensed-phase species that are present in the product aerosols. Also in year two, ambient aerosols and gases will be sampled in AFO-impacted air sheds in Utah and California, and the molecular speciation of amine and amine-derivative compounds will be determined.The project has several broader impacts, including the education and training of two graduate students at Utah State University (USU) and one at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), to perform smog chamber studies of amine reactions. Undergraduate assistants at USU and UCR will assist with chemical analysis of aerosols and associated data analysis. The project also supports a sabbatical for a professor of chemistry at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and two CMC undergraduate students to assist at USU with the analytical methodology development during year one and with ambient sampling work in Utah and California in year two. In addition to personnel support, the studies of aerosol formation reactions from amines yield new information on the atmospheric component of the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen. Understanding the fundamental atmospheric chemistry of amines is critical for quantification of the fate of air pollutants associated with large-scale food production.