Jesse Kroll (Professor at MIT’s Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering, and Director of MIT’s Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering)

Organic peroxy (RO₂) radicals, intermediates in virtually all atmospheric organic oxidation processes, can react via a large number of different chemical pathways (bimolecular reactions with NO, HO₂, NO₂, or other RO₂, as well as unimolecular isomerization reactions). As such they serve as key branch points in the formation of oxidation products, including secondary organic aerosol (SOA). However laboratory chamber studies of SOA formation are often run under RO₂ reaction conditions that are not representative of those of the atmosphere, and in some cases that are not even defined. Since most SOA-formation modules within 3D models are based on such lab studies, these limitations can translate directly to inaccuracies in model predictions. This talk will center on two studies related to RO₂ chemistry and SOA measurements: (1) an analysis of historical SOA chamber experiments, in order better constrain the RO₂ (and oxidant) chemistry that they accessed; and (2) efforts to better characterize and control RO₂ chemistry within SOA chambers going forward.

Jesse Kroll is a professor at MIT’s Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering, and the Director of MIT’s Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University (Anderson group) in 2003, did his a postdoc at Caltech, and then was a Research Scientist at Aerodyne Research, Inc. He joined the MIT faculty in 2009. His group carries out research on the organic chemistry of the atmosphere, with a particular focus on laboratory studies of oxidation reactions and secondary organic aerosol formation, as well as the use of low-cost sensors for measuring atmospheric composition and chemistry.