Understanding the Fundamentals of Combustion-Generated Soot Nanoparticle Formation and Restructuring

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The world faces threats on multiple fronts. Climate change has increased the number of damaging extreme climate events, such as the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, in the past decade with projections indicating this trend will worsen. At the same time, ambient particulate matter caused 4.2 million deaths in 2015, with an increasing trend. The world faces grand challenges in mitigating the negative effects of climate change and particulate matter. Soot (black carbon) nanoparticles are the second largest contributor to climate change and major contributor to particulate matter. It is imperative for the health of our planet and species that these negative effects from soot nanoparticle emissions be mitigated. However, the move towards mitigating the negative effects of soot is severely hindered. Overall, increases in aviation, lack of predictive models, and the unclear link between emitted and atmospheric properties all pose risks to mitigation. The long-term research program vision is to develop models to link together the fundamental, practical device and atmospheric aspects of soot to inform effective mitigation strategies. These models will help regulators understand what properties emitted particles must have to achieve a given atmospheric state (and hence lesser climate/health impact) and feasibility of achieving these emitted particle properties. The short term objectives of the program enable strategic progress towards this vision and include both low-risk and high-risk aspects. The long-term research program will provide policy makers the knowledge they need to create regulations that can mitigate the damaging climate change and human health effects of soot with maximum results. The program will also provide industry with the computational tools and HQP they need to meet these new regulations in a cost-efficient manner. The program is highly innovative and risk-taking in its aim to link together soot emissions and atmospheric transformations, yet it combines more traditional soot formation research as well. Fundamental understanding of the soot formation and atmospheric transformation process will be discovered, leading to training of HQP needed to tackle these issues. The short term objectives aim to create the first quantitative models for soot composition and coating-induced restructuring, making timely steps towards the long term research vision.