ENV4101/ENV5105 (Elements of Atmospheric Pollution/Fundamentals of Air Pollutions)

The class will provide the platform to undergraduate students or first year graduate students to understand the important processes of atmospheric pollutants and the emerging issues that the Earth’s atmospheric environment experiences.  This course covers various topics in air pollution covering the structure and composition of atmosphere; the properties of atmospheric gases and aerosol; ozone formation engaged in NO_x chemistry; the photochemical reactions of volatile organic compounds; monitoring instruments; sources of air pollutants; the effect of air pollution on health and climate forcing; dispersion of air pollutants; and air quality regulation and environmental policy.

EES6932 (Advanced Atmospheric Chemistry)

The major theme of this course is to study the chemical and physical process of inorganic and organic chemical species in the tropospheric atmosphere.  The topics covered by this course include the structure and composition of Earth’s atmosphere; estimation of actinic flux from sunlight as a function of time, date, and location; the formation and reactions of atmospheric oxidants and radicals; atmospheric fate of hydrocarbons; photochemistry of atmospheric inorganic species such SO₂ and nitrogen oxides; the structure-reactivity relationship to predict oxidation rate constants of various hydrocarbons; experimental approaches to study kinetics of atmospheric chemistry of air pollutants; ozone formation; modeling of the gas phase kinetics (explicit modeling, CB4, and Saprc); characterization of atmospheric chemical species.

ENV6932 (Aerosol Physics and Chemistry)

The main theme of this class is to study atmospheric chemistry of chemical species in airborne particles and the physical and chemical properties of atmospheric particles.  The class materials cover the condensation and evaporation processes of atmospheric compounds on airborne particles; the prediction of thermodynamic parameters of organic species; multiphase partitioning of organic species, atmospheric inorganic thermodynamic models; multiphase chemistry of air pollutants; nucleation processes in the gas phase; coagulation of aerosol; and physicochemical parameters to predict kinetics of photochemical reactions of air pollutants.

ENVR6932 (Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling) 

This main theme of this class is to simulate the atmospheric processes of air pollutants using the chemical solver.  Students will learn how to tackle the kinetic mechanisms of air pollutants in gas and particle phase, concentrations of reactants, and metrological conditions (sunlight, temperature and humidity) into chemical solver.  The students will learn both emerging chemistry and the chemical mechanisms traditionally employed in air quality models (i.e., CB05 and Saprc).  Students will simulate the transformation of air pollutants such as hydrocarbons, NO_x and SO₂, and the formation of organic aerosol and ozone at a given reactor or in ambient air.