MODELING ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY

ENVR 890-04/ENVR 296-004 (Undergraduate)

Spring Semester, 3.0 Credit Hours

Description:

Air pollution is an important scientific problem that must be understood to protect human health. Ozone, a component of air pollution, is formed through the interaction of hundreds of nonlinear chemical reactions involving dozens of chemical species. Scientists turn to computer models to simulate this complex chemistry and understand ozone formation. For computer models to accurately predict air pollution it must replicate atmospheric reaction processes. Computational restraints prevent a fully explicit chemical representation of the atmosphere. Instead, a simplified chemical system must be derived that reduces the number of chemical reactions. Through this course we will study and evaluate how these simplified chemical systems predict ozone formation. We will begin with a detailed discussion of atmospheric ozone chemistry and then proceed to an investigation of a condensed chemical mechanism. Our investigation will begin with one of the first chemical mechanisms used for photochemical modeling, the Carbon Bond chemical mechanism.

PROCESS DYNAMICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

ENVR 451 , Fall Semester, 3.0 Credit Hours

Description:

Prerequisites, MATH 524 (124 ) Elementary Differential Equations or equivalent, permission of the instructor. Application of fluid transport, mass transfer, and chemical reactor principles to describe important processes in water/wastewater treatment, air pollution control, and natural systems.

Objectives:

1. Understand the dynamics of processes responsible for mass transport and reaction of constituents (e.g., dissolve chemical species,  particles, etc.) in a fluid phase and between two phases (e.g., mass transfer at solid-aqueous phase interfaces and air-aqueous phase interfaces) 

2. Prepare material balances that account for the transport and fate of constituents in any phase and the application to a wide variety of situations in natural and engineered systems

3. Solve algebraic equations and ordinary differential equations that result from material balance expressions to find concentrations of a constituent as a function of time or space, i.e., to describe transport and fate for general analysis of a variety of situations

4. Recognize the application of available solutions to partial differential equations that result from material balance expressions and appropriate boundary conditions to find concentrations of a constituent as a function of time and space

5. Appreciate general concepts (if not the details) used in current research literature that involve process dynamics

Text:Process Dynamics in Environmental Systems, Weber and DiGiano, Wiley & Sons, New York (1996)

UNIFYING CONCEPTS

ENVR 401, Spring Semester, 3.0 Credit Hours

Description:

Unifying concepts of environmental systems, including conservation principles, modeling, economics, and policy with applications from throughout natural, engineered, human systems. Interfaces among scientific, engineering, and policy aspects of the field. This course is made up of several modules prepared by various faculty members throughout the department that a student takes in series. I have developed a module that is intended to provide an introduction to the relevant physical and chemical processes that influence the production of ozone through case studies and discussion groups.