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Ozone in wildfire smoke and its influence on regional and global ozone
Steven S. Brown
Tropospheric Chemistry and Atmospheric Remote Sensing Program Lead,
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO
Adjoint Professor of Chemistry,
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

The frequency, burned area and emissions from wildfires have been increasing in North America for the last four decades. Biomass burning is a known sources of ozone precursors, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Increasing wildfire emissions have influenced trends in North American urban ozone. The pyrogenic influence on ozone occurs either through ozone production within smoke plumes that is then transported to urban regions, or through the mixing of pyrogenic VOCs with urban NOx to enhance local and regional ozone production. This presentation will use data from recent airborne and ground-based field campaigns to quantify these processes. The 2016-2017 Atmospheric Tomography mission (ATom) assessed the influence of biomass burning at hemispheric and global scales. The 2019 Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) sampled wildfire smoke across the U.S. with multiple research aircraft. The 2022 California Fire Dynamics Experiment (CalFiDE) conducted focused in-situ and remote sensing measurements in California and Oregon. Ground-based measurements in Boulder, Colorado intercepted periods of smoke influence in the Northern Front Range urban area in 2020 and 2021. Finally, the 2023 Atmospheric Emissions and Reactivity Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas (AEROMMA) campaign on the NASA DC-8 and the Coastal Urban Plume Dynamics Study (CUPiDS) on the NOAA Twin Otter observed long range smoke transported to U.S. urban areas and the associated impacts on ozone.

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The Physical and Electrochemical Studies of Perylene Diimide Compounds
Jim Hall,
CU 1st Year

Solar photovoltaics are an important part of the worlds climate change mitigation strategies; however, the solar cells being use commercially only perform at 10-15% efficiency. Improving these cells to reduce the energy lost to thermalization can be an important step in increasing the efficiency of these cells. Perylene diimides (PDIs), a class of organic industrial dyes, have shown great promise in their ability to harness this energy loss through a process called singlet fission. This talk looks into the transient absorption measurements of some of these PDI compounds and shows their ability to downconvert this energy to be better used by a solar cell. In addition, we will explore the cyclic voltammetry (CV) of these compounds; despite several rounds of troubleshooting and problem solving, the set up being used did not show any significant oxidation or reduction events within the voltages being scanned. This is likely due to reactions with oxygen during the CV process, despite best efforts to remove it.

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