NOAA Nitrogen Oxides and Ozone (NOyO3)

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PI

The NOAA NOyO3 4-channel chemiluminescence (CL) instrument will provide in-situ measurements of nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), total reactive nitrogen oxides (NOy), and ozone (O3) on the NASA DC-8 during the FIREX-AQ project. Different versions of this instrument have flown on the NASA DC-8 and NOAA WP-3D research aircraft on field projects since 1995. It provides fast-response, specific, high precision, and calibrated measurements of nitrogen oxides and ozone at a spatial resolution of better than 100m at typical DC-8 research flight speeds. Detection is based on the gas-phase CL reaction of NO with O3 at low pressure, resulting in photoemission from electronically excited NO2. Photons are detected and quantified using pulse counting techniques, providing ~5 to 10 part-per-trillion by volume (pptv) precision at 1 Hz data rates. One detector of the integrated 4-channel instrument is used to measure ambient NO directly, a second detector is equipped with a UV-LED converter to photodissociate ambient NO2 to NO, and a third detector is equipped with a heated gold catalyst to reduce ambient NOy species to NO. Reagent ozone is added to these sample streams to drive the CL reactions with NO. Ambient O3 is detected in the fourth channel by adding reagent NO.

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