Chad Vecitis is currently a Yale Institute of Biospheric Sciences (YIBS) Post-Doctoral Fellow working with Prof. Menachem Elimelech. Chad is investigating the environmental chemistry of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Chad’s research will focus on studying the SWNT anti-microbial mechanism, as well as engineering SWNT-based structures for water treatment. Chad will receive his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology under the advice of Prof. Michael R. Hoffmann in Environmental Physical Chemistry. Chad’s PhD research focused on the remediation of aqueous perfluorochemicals. At CalTech, Chad also worked on projects involving the solar-powered electrochemical production of hydrogen via water-splitting and atmospherically relevant chemistry at the air-water interface. Chad received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins in 2001 where he began his research career with Prof. Howard Fairbrother.
Current atmospheric models commonly utilize bulk aqueous chemical kinetics when evaluating aerosol chemistry. Gaseous oxidant-aerosol kinetics at the air-water interface may not follow bulk kinetics due to interfacial concentration gradients and molecular orientation. We developed an ESI-MS based method to investigate interfacial anion partitioning and chemistry with a focus on iodide-catalyzed ozone oxidations. We found that relative ozone kinetics at the air-water interface were at variance with previously determined bulk aqueous kinetics. Iodide was found to catalyze the ozone-based oxidation of a number of atmospherically relevant inorganics such as bromide, chloride and sulfite. Implications of the iodide catalyzed oxidation of bromide on the Marine Boundary Layer and ozone depletion events will be discussed, as well as future experimental work.
