Research Interests

Overview:  
This laboratory's research is at the intersection of analytical and physical chemistry. Our laboratory's mission is to explore significant fundamental and applied research questions on physicochemical processes involving particles (in air, aka aerosols) and organic and metal pollutants of relevance to the Earth's atmosphere and its interfaces (air-snow/ice/water/soil). We also develop novel sustainable technology (natural nanoparticles, energy-neutral, and recyclable) for air and water pollution remediation, & cutting-edge technology and methods for ultra-trace detection of gaseous and particulate matter. Our direct research contributions include the following:
  • Physical and analytical chemistry.
  • Climate change.
  • Sustainable chemistry and technology.
  • Air pollution.
  • Nano-science.
  • Environmental health and medicine.
 
Our current active research R&D themes in our laboratories are that are performed by field observation, laboratory experiments, numerical modelling and sustainable technologies (sensors and Zero-net energy for pollution remediation):

  1. Development of novel four-dimensional physicochemical studies of airborne Nanoparticles (single and cluster particles) in the atmosphere and air/snow/water interfaces: Ultra-fast observation, Kinetics, dynamics, thermodynamics, phase partitioning and development of chemical speciation
  2. Ice nucleation microphysics: Interactions of aerosol-cloud interactions
  3. Urban & Arctic air pollution: Impacts on human and ecosystem health
  4. Emerging contaminants: Nano/microplastics, black/brown carbons, electronic waste, rare metals,  pharmaceutical materials, nano-metals etc., in air/water/ice,
  5. Development of sustainable technology  Natural material, recyclable, energy neutral, and efficient, with detailed studies of life cycle analysis
  6. Bioaerosols: We develop new technologies for single virus observation in dynamic and stationary modes. We also perform experiments on RNA/DNA and genomic of airborne particles, as well as those in air/water/snow

 
The IPCC (2013) points to the importance of aerosol-cloud processes due to their impact on the absorption and scattering of radiation, altering the Earth's climate, where as the WHO (2015) predominantly considers aerosols as to be health hazards. It has become increasingly clear that both the climate and toxicity-health impact of nanoparticles are significantly affected by physical and chemical processes such as size, gas-particle partitioning, hygroscopicity, liquid-liquid phase separation, redox kinetics, surface tension, viscosity, molecular configuration, active sites, surface properties, and chemical composition. We have established expertise and infrastructure to perform aerosol research, including nanoparticles in air and air/snow/water surfaces, by contributing to address key uncertainties described above, and pioneering novel questions and solutions, with which affect climate and health challenges.
 
Our research are performed through complementary field (from Arctic to urban), laboratory and modeling research. Our state-of-the-art kinetic, surface and photochemical laboratory investigations are performed using ultra-fast and sensitive detection using various high resolution lasers, second harmonic generation, long path FTIR, FT-Raman, various mass spectrometry, microscopy, surface sciences, air pollution and aerosols analyzers. We develop sustainable techniques and perform highly sensitivity measurements of trace gaseous and particulate compounds. Complementary computational and atmospheric chemical modelling of the reaction intermediates in the atmosphere to simulate the complex physical-bio-chemical interactions. During the last decade, we have been developing novel sustainable technology in air and water pollution remediation and smart sensors, which are efficient, energy neutral, recyclable with no waste, and their life cycle analysis have been considered prior to their design and development.                                                
 
We are very grateful to several funding agencies to their continuous financial or in-kind support to perform our research and training bright highly qualified personnel. They include McGill University, NSERC (operating/discovery, northern suppl., strategic, I2I, network, create), CFI, FRQNT (professor/researcher, new researcher, strategic, network), Environment Canada, CSA NRC, , Fishery and Ocean, Health Canada, NanoQubec (Prima), EU, MPI and NASA.
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