Abstract
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released into the atmosphere by natural and anthropogenic sources play a key role in atmospheric processes. They can react with atmospheric oxidants leading to secondary organic aerosols and tropospheric ozone, with effects on human health and climate.
With this seminar, I would like to show you the current understanding on VOC composition and their reactivity using some of the results I obtained from ~10 years of field research in different outdoor and indoor environments. Particularly, I will show you the reactive VOC influencing the air chemistry in sites having different characteristics such as the Mediterranean basin, the Amazonian rainforest, and the occupied indoor environment. Finally, I will present some preliminary results from my current work at CNR-ISAC within ITINERIS/PNRR about the VOC characterizing the urban air of Milan.
Short bio
Dr Nora Zannoni is a research scientist at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISAC). She was awarded her PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Paris XI, with a thesis on field observations of OH reactivity with mass spectrometry in the Mediterranean region. She worked as a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry where she joined the Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) project conducting field research on volatile organic compounds emissions from the Amazonian rainforest. She also applied her knowledge in atmospheric chemistry to study how people influence the air chemistry in occupied indoor environments. More recently she became member of the Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) for which she investigates the precursors of aerosols in the polluted area of the Italian Po Valley -Monte Cimone. Her research interest is to understand the sources and sinks of volatile organic compounds (VOC) through field work in diverse environments, including forests, polluted areas and the indoor environment.
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