Deep-ocean hydrothermal systems host unique habitat for living organisms at the seafloor and provide carbon and energy sources to the deep biosphere. We seek understanding of the hydrothermal chemistry and interconversion mechanisms of organic functional groups, and also the roles of minerals and dissolved metals in the origin, transport, and degradation of organic carbon and nitrogen in oceanic hydrothermal systems. See Aspin et al. (2023); Liao et al. (2021); Fu et al. (2020a); Yang et al. (2018) for example.

We investigate new pathways for prebiotic synthesis of biomolecule precursors such as amides and peptides, with a goal of improving our understanding and prediction of habitability on early Earth and other worlds. See Robinson et al. (2021); Fu et al. (2020b); Fu et al. (2020c) for example.

With mechanistic understanding of hydrothermal geochemistry, we aim to deploy sustainable methods of using Earth-abundant inorganic materials as clean, cost-effective, and novel catalysts for green chemical synthesis and remediation. Our goal is to explore new frontiers of geoscience research for addressing current sustainability challenges in organic synthesis and waste recycling. See Liao et al. (2022); Liao et al. (2021); Fu et al. (2020a); Yang et al. (2015) for example.

Plume ejection could influence relative abundances of biosignatures in geysering ocean worlds such as Saturn's moon Enceladus. This Scialog project (in collaboration with Dr. Marc Neveu at NASA Goddard) aims to measure the fractionation of biosignatures in a laboratory-simulated plume system. The collected information would be useful to interpret the relative abundance and distribution of biosignatures in the subsurface ocean for future search-for-life measurements. See Neveu, Aspin et al. (2024) for example.

Warming and permafrost thaw are accelerating Arctic soil carbon losses through microbial decomposition. We utilize traditional and advanced analytical methods to fingerprint Arctic soil organic matter at the molecular level, by which we can identify the key biogeochemical drivers and pathways that control the fate of organic carbon and nitrogen in the warming tundra. See Philben et al. (2020); Yang et al. (2019); Chen et al. (2018); Yang et al. (2017); Yang et al. (2016a) for example.

This NSF-funded project aims to develop low-cost, sensitive, and robust soil sensors for carbon dioxide and methane detection in tundra and permafrost soils. We use ionic liquid as a unique solvent and electrolyte to develop miniaturized and multimodal electrochemical gas sensors that can function at sub-zero temperatures in the Arctic. See Sridhar et al. (2023) as an example.

Sand dunes along the Great Lakes shorelines provide unique habitats for rare plants and animal species and host thriving microbial communities. We aim to examine and understand the biogeochemical processes that are related to carbon cycling, phosphorus uptake, and mercury methylation in these world's largest freshwater sand dune ecosystems. See Zaporski and Yang (2022); Zaporski et al. (2020) for example.

Mercury (Hg) is a well-known pollutant in the air, soils, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Its methylated form, methylmercury (MeHg), is a more potent neurotoxin that can cause severe neurological damage to humans. Our goal is to understand the formation, transport, and degradation of MeHg in ecosystems such as Arctic tundra, the Great Lakes, and cropland, as well as estimate the potential of microbial methylation in those environments. See Zhang et al. (2022); Dai et al. (2021); Zaporski et al. (2020); Yang et al. (2016b) for example.