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Black carbon in the Earth troposphere
The presence of soot and black carbons in the atmosphere is due to natural sources emission such as forest fires but also to human activities. These are known to have a strong impact on human health because they may transport toxic molecules, such as the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), or reactions at their surfaces may cause health hazard. They are also very efficiently contributing to the global warming. However, they are still poorly characterized although of primary importance and despite black carbons have been suggested to be a good tracer of toxic nanoparticles. Improving the knowledge on the sources of emission in the atmosphere of the pollutants and particles in general, and soot in particular, is clearly one of the key for the success in improving air quality and reducing the emission of greenhouse particles and gas.
We have started a project, Rawdar, based on the Raman features of soot and black carbon in the aerosol phase. It also allows to study in situ the details of soot inception and growth directly in a combustion reactor for more fundamental purpose.
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