New Approaches to Characterise the Surface and Bulk Compositions of Picolitre Droplets

Speaker: Dr Bryan Bzdek, University of Bristol

RSC 2023 Faraday Early Career Prize: Marlow Prize Winner
Aerosols are unique microcompartments central to areas as diverse as climate and air pollution, disease transmission, and chemical synthesis. Resolving their roles in each of these areas is challenging. For instance, the surface composition of aerosol droplets is key to predicting cloud droplet number concentrations, understanding atmospheric pollutant transformation, and interpreting observations of accelerated droplet chemistry. However, direct measurement of the surface properties of aerosol droplets is challenging, even though such measurements are necessary, as surface-bulk partitioning is strongly affected by the droplet’s surface area-to-volume ratio. In this presentation, we will discuss new advances to characterise the equilibrium and dynamic surface properties of picolitre volume droplets, gaining important insights that bear directly on our understanding of how cloud droplets form in the atmosphere and how chemical reactions may proceed in finite-volume systems. We will also describe a new mass spectrometry approach enabling sensitive, high throughput chemical analysis of picolitre droplets, facilitating more robust studies of the factors governing chemical reactivity in microcompartments.

ALL WELCOME!

Bio - Bryan Bzdek

Bryan Bzdek is Proleptic Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol. He earned a B.S. degree in Chemistry at Bucknell University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Delaware. He performed postdoctoral studies with Jonathan P. Reid, and then began his independent career at the University of Bristol in 2017 as a NERC Independent Research Fellow. His research on the physical and analytical chemistry of aerosols spans applications in atmospheric science and health. He is a recipient of the Kenneth T. Whitby (2024) Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research, the Marlow Prize (2023) from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Philip Leverhulme Prize (2022) from the Leverhulme Trust. During the COVID -19 pandemic, his research altered UK government guidance in the performing arts and the NHS infection prevention and control manual. He also gave many print and radio interviews about aerosols and COVID -19 to organisations including US public radio, BBC , CBS, and CNN .