A Practical Guide to Atmospheric Simulation Chambers

Prof. Jean-Francois Doussin has led for more than 20 years the research group at LISA dealing with both field and airborne measurement of VOCs and NOy and with experimental simulations in smog chambers. These activities involves secondary aerosol, mineral dust, soots or cloud droplets chemistry and aims at understanding the transformations of atmospheric contaminants as well as their impact on their climate or air pollution relevant properties. This work has led to more than 120 peer-reviewed articles. J-F Doussin was the coordinator of the EUROCHAMP-2020 Integrated Activities which was funded by the European Commission to coordinate atmospheric simulation chambers across Europe. Since then, he has conducted the integration of atmospheric simulation chamber in the ACTRIS European Research Infrastructure.   In the French National Research Centre (CNRS), J-F Doussin is now Scientific Deputy Director at CNRS-INSU in charge of the Oceanographic and Atmospheric division).  Hendrik Fuchs is Professor for Experimental Physics at University Cologne, Germany since 2021. Since 2008 he has been a researcher at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany. He obtained his PhD in 2006 from Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany. He received a Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). Research interests: atmospheric radical chemistry, field and chamber studies. Astrid Kiendler-Scharr is Director of IEK-8: Troposphere, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH since 2012 and Professor for Experimental Physics at University Cologne, Germany.  Her research focusses on organic aerosol and atmospheric chemistry, chemistry–climate interactions, and atmosphere–biosphere exchange and feedback. She has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and was lead author of the 6th assessment report of the IPCC. She currently chairs the ACTRIS simulation chamber committee. Paul Seakins is Head of Physical Chemistry and Professor of Reaction Kinetics at University of Leeds, where he has worked since 1992. He obtained his D.Phil in laboratory kinetics from the University of Oxford in 1990 and then worked for two years as a SERC/NATO Fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At the School of Chemistry, University of Leeds,  he continues to study laboratory kinetics of elementary reactions with applications to combustion and atmospheric chemistry of both the Earth and other planets. Additionally, he has led the development of the Highly Instrumented Chamber for Atmospheric Chemistry (HIRAC). A feature of HIRAC is the focus on radical measurements including the development of new methodologies. John Wenger is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at University College Cork (UCC) and joint founder of the Centre for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry. Prof. Wenger has over 25 years research experience in atmospheric chemistry and air pollution, producing over 110 publications. His research has mainly focused on the chemical and physical processes affecting atmospheric composition, air quality and climate, with a particular emphasis on the use of atmospheric simulation chambers to investigate the chemistry of volatile organic compounds and secondary organic aerosols.

Introduction to atmospheric simulation chambers and their applications.- Physical and chemical characterization of the chamber.- Preparation of simulation chambers for experiments.- Preparation of Experiments: Addition and in-situ production of gas phase trace gas and oxidants.- Preparation of the Experiment: Addition of Particles.- Sampling for Offline Analysis.- Analysis of Chamber Data.- Application of simulation chambers to investigate interfacial processes.- Conclusions.