Role of nanominerals on photochemical derived atmospheric NH3 and N2O

纳米矿物对光化学产生的大气 NH3 和 N2O 的作用

• 批准号: 1933646
• 负责人: Marta Hatzell
• 金额: $ 49.87万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1933646&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Role; nanominerals; photochemical; derived; atmospheric; Role; nanominerals; photochemical; derived; atmospheric

Significant evidence suggests that the global nitrogen cycle is not balanced. The intensification of agriculture and rising emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are largely responsible for this imbalance, as both of these anthropogenic activities have enhanced reactive nitrogen emissions by a factor of three over the last century. Furthermore, these harmful environmental pollutants are responsible for the formation of certain aerosols, which have negative implications for both natural ecosystems and human health. A chief challenge in engineering solutions to this imbalance lies in quantifying and identifying all global nitrogen fluxes in the atmosphere and pedosphere. This requires high-resolution measurements of both natural and anthropogenic sources and sinks. This research will aim to quantify the rate of natural nitrogen-based atmospheric emissions that arise due to nanoscale interactions between soil nanominerals and sunlight. Currently, anthropogenic sources are generally more accurately mapped than emissions from natural or semi-natural sources. Therefore, further efforts to identify which nanoscale phenomena aid the formation and nitrogen-based emission in soils is important to advance our understanding of the global nitrogen cycle. The work will also support undergraduate education, serving as the basis of a capstone project through Georgia Tech's Food-Energy-Water initiatives, which is enabled through the Serve-Learn-Sustain program. This capstone project will engage undergraduate seniors from a range of academic disciplines including engineering and social sciences. In addition, this work seeks to engage the non-scientific community through a collaboration with the Atlanta wide initiative Science-Art-Wonder. Through this program, researchers will collaborate with artist to transform key scientific findings into art pieces that will be displayed at the Atlanta science festival. The main research objective of this project is to understand how photocatalytic earth-abundant nanominerals in soils and sands contribute to reactive nitrogen emissions. Specifically, the PI will investigate the role mineral, soil and atmospheric properties play in increasing the activity of nanominerals for ammonia and nitrous oxide production. The nanoscale structure-property relationships of common nanominerals will be probed through photo(electro)catalytic testing to discern the impact mineral size and surface nanostructure have on catalytic activity. In depth first-principles calculations and atmospheric testing will also elucidate which nanoscale chemical mechanisms and physical phenomena promote sunlight driven reactive nitrogen production and emission from soils and sands. This fundamental understanding will provide insight into the role terrestrial nanominerals play in mediating the natural nitrogen cycle, providing a foundation for more accurate models of nutrient fluxes in terrestrial and atmospheric settings. The project will seek to establish a holistic view of the role soils and agriculture play on atmospheric pollution. The impact of the work will be enhanced by outreach and educational efforts. The findings will be highlighted through a publicly accessible website and YouTube videos that demonstrate key findings and suggest simple experiments that can be performed with household items.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

大量证据表明，全球氮循环不平衡。化石燃料燃烧的农业和排放量的增强是在很大程度上造成了这种失衡的原因，因为这两种人为活性在上个世纪增强了反应性氮的排放量增加了三倍。此外，这些有害的环境污染物负责某些气溶胶的形成，这些气溶胶对自然生态系统和人类健康都有负面影响。工程解决方案的主要挑战在于量化和识别大气和卵石中所有全球氮通量。这需要对天然和人为来源和下沉的高分辨率测量。这项研究的目的是量化由于土壤纳米纳米纳米纳米纳米纳米和阳光之间的纳米级相互作用而产生的天然基于氮的大气排放率。当前，人为来源通常比自然或半天然来源的排放更准确地映射。因此，进一步的努力确定哪种纳米级现象有助于土壤中基于氮的形成和基于氮的发射对于促进我们对全球氮周期的理解非常重要。这项工作还将支持本科教育，并通过佐治亚理工学院的食品能量 - 水计划作为顶峰项目的基础，该计划通过Serve-Learn-Sustain计划实现。这个顶峰项目将吸引来自包括工程和社会科学在内的一系列学科的本科生。此外，这项工作旨在通过与亚特兰大广泛的倡议科学与奖学者的合作来吸引非科学社区。通过该计划，研究人员将与艺术家合作，将关键的科学发现变成将在亚特兰大科学节上展出的艺术作品。该项目的主要研究目的是了解土壤和沙子中的光催化土​​量丰富的纳米纳米纳米菌如何有助于反应性氮的排放。具体而言，PI将研究矿物质，土壤和大气特性在增加纳米磷酸盐对氨和氧化二氮的活性方面起作用。将通过照片（电）催化测试来探测常见纳米金的纳米级结构特性关系，以辨别矿物质大小和表面纳米结构对催化活性的影响。深入的第一原理计算和大气测试还将阐明哪些纳米级化学机制和物理现象可以促进阳光驱动的反应性氮的产生以及土壤和沙子的排放。这种基本的理解将为陆地纳米纳米纳米尔在介导自然氮循环中的作用提供深入的了解，为在陆地和大气环境中更准确的营养通量模型奠定了基础。该项目将寻求对土壤和农业在大气污染中发挥作用的全面看法。外展和教育工作将增强工作的影响。这些发现将通过公开访问的网站和YouTube视频来强调，该网站和YouTube视频展示了关键的发现并提出了可以与家居项目一起执行的简单实验。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准通过评估来进行评估的。