Chemical Processes & Instrument Development: Instruments
Total Reactive Nitrogen (Nr)
Principle of the Measurement
Catalytic conversion of all nitrogen species, except for N2 and N2O, to nitic oxide (NO), and detection by NO-O3 chemiluminescence.
Species Measured
All N-containing species besides N2 and N2O. The method has been verified for a range of organic and inorganic N species.
Time Response
1 second
Detection Limit
Precision on 1s data ±0.1ppbv
Accuracy
± (10% + 0.1ppbv)
Applications
This instrument has been used to measure Nr in fire emissions during the 2016 FireLab experiment, as well as a detector for laboratory experiments on the solubility of reduced N species, HNCO, CH3NCO and XCN (X= Cl, Br, and I). The measurement of sources of Nr compounds for the calibration of other instruments has been another important use of this instrument.
Key Publications
Stockwell, C.E., R.A. Washenfelder, A. Kupc, B. Witkowski, R.K. Talukdar, Y. Liu, V. Selimovic, K.J. Zarzana, K. Sekimoto, C. Warneke, R.J. Yokelson, A.M. Middlebrook, J.M. Roberts, Characterization of a catalyst-based conversion technique to measure total particle nitrogen and organic carbon and comparison to a particle mass measurement instrument, Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, doi:10.5194/amt-11-2749-2018, 2018.
Roberts J.M., and Y. Liu, Solubility and solution-phase chemistry of isocyanic acid, methyl isocyanate and cyanogen halides, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, doi:10.5194/acp-19-4419-2019, 2019.
Roberts, James M., Chelsea Stockwell, Robert J. Yokelson, Joost de Gouw, Yong Liu, Vanessa Selimovic, Abigail R. Koss, Kanako Sekimoto, Matthew M. Coggon, Bin Yuan, Kyle J. Zarzana, Steven S. Brown, Cristina Santin, Stefan H. Doerr, and Carsten Warneke, The nitrogen budget of laboratory-simulated western US wildfires during the FIREX 2016 FireLab study, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, doi:10.5194/acp-20-8807-2020, 2020.