Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Analysis of nitrogen isotopes provides evidence of the earliest known photosymbiosis in corals of the Devonian

Max Planck researchers are witnessing first-hand the alarming scale of forest fires in the Amazon

The Global Fire Monitoring Center conducts research into fire ecology and translates its findings into practical knowledge for policymakers and practitioners

Huge smoke-charged vortex doubles aerosol burden in the middle stratosphere and buffers ozone depletion

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw) honours the best scientific press releases of the past year.

Incidences of forest fires are increasing worldwide, including around the Mediterranean and in Germany. The main driver here can be attributed to the ongoing drought stress to which forests are exposed as a result of climate change. The Global Fire Monitoring Center, led by fire ecologist Johann Georg Goldammer, is pursuing new approaches to fire management.

Lena Heins from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz crossed the Atlantic aboard the research sailing yacht S/Y Eugen Seibold. During the voyage from Cape Verde to the Caribbean Island of Grenada, she collected samples for various climate projects. Here, the scientist offers an insight into her work on the ship and tells us about dolphins, flying fish, and a climate archive on the ocean floor.

Materials that can conduct electricity without any losses would improve energy efficiency in many areas. However, superconductivity would have to occur at more practical temperature levels. By taking a new approach, Mikhail Eremets and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have come significantly closer to this goal – in particular by placing their materials under truly astronomical pressure.

The theoretical physicist Max Delbrück is considered to be one of the co-founders of molecular genetics. He began his career in biology in the 1930s when he was an assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine 50 years ago, for his work on the genetic structure of viruses and how they reproduce.

Before Jonathan Williams discovered atmospheric chemistry, he had a problem: he was fascinated by so many things that he didn’t know which scientific discipline to devote himself to. Even today, the scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz has varied research interests. In recent years, for example, another new topic has awoken his curiosity – the trace that our emotions leave behind in the air.

A study conducted by a team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) led by Thomas Berkemeier (MPIC) showed that the harmful effects of particulate matter on health are due to its catalytic effect in the conversion of peroxides into a small number of highly reactive molecules such as hydroxyl radicals, rather than the chemical formation of larger quantities of hydrogen peroxide in the lungs, as previously assumed. With this knowledge, it should be possible to better classify the dangers of various air pollutants in the future.

During the first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic, soot concentrations in the atmosphere over Western and Southern Europe almost halved. This is apparent from our comparison of two measurement campaigns carried out by the German research aircraft HALO in 2017 and 2020. Our study shows that approximately 40 percent of the reduction is due to decreased anthropogenic emissions. These findings reflect the major impact of human activity on air quality and the significance of soot as an important air pollutant and climate driver in the Anthropocene.

The human body can strongly influence the chemical composition of indoor air. In our breath and from our skin, we emit a complex mixture of chemical substances and particles wherever we go that react with their environment. Nowadays, since people spend most of their lives indoors, indoor air quality plays an important role regarding health. Therefore, it is particularly important to understand how human emissions can affect the composition of indoor air. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, led by Jonathan Williams, have been working on this in a series of novel experiments.

In spring 2020, group leader Frank Drewnick started a research series at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, which was spontaneously initiated during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this series, they investigated everyday materials for their suitability for face masks to support the selection of materials and to better understand which factors influence their efficacy. The group repurposed measuring instruments which they normally use to analyze the properties of atmospheric aerosol particles to measure the filter efficiency and pressure drop of household materials.

Air pollution has been significantly underestimated as a health hazard. Calculations of the global health study Global Burden of Disease (GBD) indicated that the global mortality rate due to air pollution was around 4.5 million people a year. In a new study, we show that this number is much higher: 8.8 million per year. In Europe alone, nearly 800,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution.