de Gouw Lab

Atmospheric Chemistry of Volatile Organic Compounds

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) enter the atmosphere from many natural and human sources. Their atmospheric lifetimes range from minutes to years. Several processes remove VOCs, such as chemical reactions with hydroxyl, ozone, and nitrate radicals, or deposition at the Earth’s surface through direct contact or indirect uptake by aerosols and cloud droplets. In polluted air, chemical reactions involving VOCs produce ozone, a harmful gas in the air we breathe. The oxidized VOCs can also condense onto aerosols and increase their mass. Aerosols are harmful because they are small enough to reach deep into the lungs. They also influence the Earth’s radiation balance and climate, either directly by scattering and absorbing radiation or indirectly by serving as cloud-condensation nuclei.

Our group uses advanced instruments to measure VOCs in the atmosphere. From these results, we aim to understand emissions, chemical changes, and the final fate of VOCs, along with how these processes help form ozone and aerosols.

Our research group is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Interested to join our group as a graduate student or post-doc? Click here for more information.