Thomas Wynn is researching the ammonia emissions that impact the health of the general public in Birmingham. By improving air quality, his research seeks to safeguard public health and contribute to cleaner, healthier environments across our society.
My research focuses on reducing ammonia emissions, a harmful gas that reduces air quality and contributes to the formation of fine particulate matter, which impacts human health. By collecting real time data and running air quality models, I am to identify the best ways to reduce ammonia emissions and approve air quality.
This project will measure atmospheric ammonia (NH3) concentrations throughout the West Midlands at a high time resolution using a mobile air quality supersite (part of the UK Air Quality Supersite Triplet (UK-AQST)) equipped with a high time resolution NH3 monitor alongside other air quality instruments. NH3 concentrations will also be measured in the West Midlands at 2 long-term fixed location sites using the same high time resolution instrument alongside a large array of other air quality instruments.
My summer placement, a CENTA Research Experience Placement, was entitled “Birmingham summer ammonia pollution monitoring in urban environments”. This project measured ammonia concentrations using passive ammonia samplers (ALPHA samplers) at 10 strategically placed sites around Edgbaston, Birmingham within a 1km radius from the Birmingham Air Quality Supersite (BAQS) which is located on the University of Birmingham campus. This sampling campaign was carried out to quantify the spatial variation of ammonia concentration in an urban area. Additionally, I carried out a literature review to summarise the urban ammonia research from the past 10 years. This project worked in direct collaboration with WM-Air, with Dr Siqi Hou from WM-Air being a co-supervisor for this project supporting the research as well as providing data from BAQS. The WM-Air project PI, Professor William Bloss, was also involved providing guidance and support to this summer placement.
This summer placement gave me first hand experience of academic research as well as researching air pollution. It showed to me how enjoyable academic research is which gave me lots of encouragement to go ahead and pursue a PhD in air pollution. Research is something that I had considered doing for a while and this summer placement gave me the affirmation that academic research is for me which then led to me pursuing a PhD. It also showed to me how enjoyable it is to get to spend all of your time focusing on just one topic so you can really learn about something in depth. Whilst prior to this project I was already interested in air pollution, it strengthened that interest even further.
I have gained invaluable skills for running a sampling campaign, specifically an atmospheric ammonia sampling campaign which is a difficult gas to measure accurately due to it being a highly reactive sticky molecule. Also, it provided me with experience on how to design an ammonia sampling campaign using Google Maps imagery to identify NH3 sources and subsequently identify the most suitable location to deploy passive samplers. These are key skills and knowledge which I will be directly applying to and using in my PhD project as I will be measuring ammonia concentrations and will also be using the same type of passive samplers as were used in this summer placement.
This experience sparked my passion for air quality research and help me gain valuable skills for my PhD. I am excited to continue my work helping improve air quality in this region, contributing to clean air solutions.