Unexpected discovery may offer new industrial applications
Newly discovered chemistry involving water-soluble particle surfaces is now being presented in a new study in Science. Initiated by a team from the University of Gothenburg, this study may be useful in the future for sewage treatment, for example.
Aerosols are small particles suspended in a gas. The particles can be solid or liquid, and the aerosol consists of both the gas and the particles. The word aerosol comes from the Greek aer, meaning air, and the Latin solutio, meaning solution.
The study was initiated by a team from the University of Gothenburg with researchers Xiangrui Kong, Dimitri Castarède, Erik S. Thomson and Jan B.C. Pettersson, all from the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, Atmospheric Science division (https://www.gu.se/en/chemistry-molecular-biology/our-research/atmospheric-science).
The measurements were carried out at the X07DB In Situ Spectroscopy beamline, Swiss Light Source (SLS) at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland (https://www.psi.ch/en/sls/nanoxas), with the help of researcher Luca Artiglia. The research at SLS was supported by the research departments Energy and Environment (https://www.psi.ch/en/ene) and Photon Science (https://www.psi.ch/en/psd).
The beamline team included colleagues from the Surface Chemistry Laboratory at PSI (https://www.psi.ch/en/luc/surface-chemistry) led by Markus Ammann and including Anthony Boucly and Luca Artiglia.
Molecular simulations were conducted by partner Ivan Gladich with the help of the new computer cluster (HPCC) at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI)/HBKU and the HPCC at Texas A&M University at Qatar, founded by Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.