Project Description
I am primarily working on building a slow flow reactor to study reaction kinetics and product formation for reactions related to chemistry in the interstellar medium.
This system will use pulsed laser photolysis of radical precursors to initate chemistry and will follow the reaction using single photon ionization mass spectrometry and laser induced fluorescence detection.
Additonally, I carry out ab-initio calcualtions to build potential energy surfaces for reactions that we will study and use these to then carry out master equation modelling and variational transition state calculations for these reactions . This theoretical work can be used to assess and target reactions for experimental study and can be used to extract additional information out of the experimental data.
Research Classification
- Astrochemistry
- Development and applications of spectroscopic and structural techniques
- Reaction kinetics and dynamics
- Chemical thermodynamics and energetics
- Computational chemistry
Research Interests
- Atmospheric Chemistry
- combustion chemistry
- astrochemistry
- origins of life
- reaction kinetics
- energetic materials
Research Methodology
- photoionization mass spectrometry
- ab-initio chemistry
- master equation calculations