Projects | Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

As a scientific user facility, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) provides expertise, instrumentation, and resources to 250 projects each year. Current and past projects supported through a variety of EMSL user proposal avenues are publicly searchable on the EMSL website.

Browse current and past research projects supported by the EMSL User Facility.

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Project pages provide details including:

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The EMSL project DOI
Link to project data available in EMSL’s Data Portal
Project type

Chemical and Morphological Analysis of Aerosols in the Stratosphere and Upper Troposphere and Their Ice Nucleation Potential

Lead Institution

Harvard University

Principal Investigator

Frank Keutsch

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Aerosols in the stratosphere and upper troposphere modify radiative forcing by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, as well as serving as ice nuclei to alter cloud formation process…

Characterization of Organosulfates and Organonitrates in Vertically-Resolved Aerosols over the Southern Great Plains

Lead Institution

University of California, Riverside

Principal Investigator

Haofei Zhang

Project type

FICUS Research

Aerosol processes and interactions with cloud play an important role in the climate system and radiative budget; they are the largest individual source of uncertainty in assessing the Earth’s…

Assessing the selective bioweathering of minerals by fungi in soil ecosystems

Lead Institution

University of California, Davis

Principal Investigator

Rebecca Lybrand

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Rock weathering replenishes nutrients in soil, shapes geochemical carbon sequestration, and drives physical, chemical, and biological processes at a multitude of scales. Globally, lithology type and…

Physics-guided Machine Learning for Protein Modeling and Design

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Armita Nourmohammad

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Proteins are the machinery of life and are involved in many processes, from photosynthesis in plants to cellular communication in the brain. The physical arrangement of a protein’s amino acids…

Cellular and chloroplast recycling pathways in maize leaf cells under low nitrogen conditions.

Lead Institution

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Principal Investigator

Marisa Otegui

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Approximately 75% of the nitrogen present in a plant is in the leaf chloroplasts. Chloroplast degradation for recycling is a major nitrogen source for supporting new growth. Nitrogen is essential for…

Nutrient and contaminant incorporation in amorphous intermediates during carbonate nucleation and growth in biogeochemical systems

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Sebastien Kerisit

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Mineral nucleation and growth are key processes affecting the mobility of critical plant nutrients and contaminants in soils. Mineral precipitation often occurs via amorphous intermediates whose…

Unraveling spatial and temporal dynamics of microbial necromass destabilization

Lead Institution

U.S. Geological Survey

Principal Investigator

Courtney Creamer

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Microbial necromass—or the extracellular and intracellular remains of dead microbes—can make up a significant portion of soil organic carbon and nitrogen. But a large quantity of necromass doesn’t…

Visualizing Manganese Biomineralization by the Mnx Protein Complex within the Exosporium of Mn-oxidizing Bacillus species

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Bradley Tebo

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Microbial production of manganese oxide minerals is a globally important biomineralization process that drives the manganese cycle in the environment. This cycle supports life through the manganese…

Manipulating chloroplast metabolism by controlling ferredoxin dependent electron distribution

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Daniela Strenkert

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Plant type Ferredoxins (Fds) are small soluble electron carriers within the chloroplast of photosynthetic eukaryotes. During oxygenic photosynthesis, linear electron flow (LEF) collects electrons…

Developing an Automated Smart Method for Searching the Configurational Space of Micronutrients in Host Minerals, Proteins, and Soils

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Eugene Ilton

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

In prior EMSL supported work we developed an ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) approach to interpret the EXAFS signal of impurities/micronutrients in the structure of Fe(oxyhydroxide) host minerals…

Elucidating the Ice Formation and Transformation Pathways in Aerosols at Atomic Resolution

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jingshan Du

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Ice formation and transformation in aerosols are critical in defining atmospheric processes and human activities. Despite efforts to study ice formation using macro- and micro-scale approaches,…

How do wildfire severity and post-fire precipitation influence fate and transport of pyrogenic organic carbon and nitrogen in terrestrial-aquatic interfaces?

Lead Institution

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Principal Investigator

Alex Chow

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Wildfire significantly changes the composition and quantity of forest biomass, converting lignin and polysaccharide rich and relatively degradable carbon pools to polycyclic aromatic and charcoal…

The Influence of Particle Phase State on the Growth Kinetics of Secondary Organic Aerosols

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Rahul Zaveri

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

We propose to investigate the influences of particle phase state and possible phase separation on the growth kinetics of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formed from oxidation of selected…

Understanding the impact of drought on native cell wall nanoarchitecture of engineered plants via multi-dimensional solid-state NMR and cryo-TEM.

Lead Institution

University of Adelaide

Principal Investigator

Jennifer Mortimer

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Plant biomass (essentially the cell wall) is the carbon source that will underpin a sustainable bioeconomy. Drought can severely affect plant growth and reduces crop yield and quality, and is a…

Investigating the Role of Drought-Impacted Root Exudates on Rhizosphere Microbial Metabolism and Viral Dynamics for Improving Tall Wheatgrass Drought Tolerance

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Sneha Couvillion

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The rhizosphere is the center of interactions between roots, soil, and microbes, where chemical exchanges are key drivers of microbial composition, plant productivity, and resilience to abiotic…

Investigating evolutionary constraints on carbon fixation by Ribulose-1,6-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco)

Lead Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigator

Steven Burgess

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Rubisco catalyzes the fixation of CO2 and is the primary site of entry for carbon into the biosphere. The enzyme is slow and subject to competitive inhibition by oxygen. The oxygenation reaction…

Understanding structure-function relationship in enzymes by designing artificial enzymes

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Bojana Ginovska

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

We propose to study how the protein environment affects functionality by designing an artificial enzyme. We will investigate the artificial enzyme Rh-LmrR which comprises an Rh-based molecular…

Exploring gas migration and diffusion pathways in CODH/ACS using molecular simulations

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Simone Raugei

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

In the coming decade, our planet is going to face several environmental and energy related problems which directly relate to the biological fixation of carbon dioxide CO2 into organic carbon which…

Nitrogen Fixation by Nitrogenase

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Simone Raugei

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The bacterial catalyst for N2 fixation is a multi-subunit metalloenzyme comprising two electron carrier Fe proteins and the MoFe protein core. This complex catalyzes the reduction of N2 to NH3 and H2…

Expanding synthetic biology tools by deeper understanding of Aspergillus niger primary metabolism

Lead Institution

Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute

Principal Investigator

Ronald de Vries

Project type

FICUS Research

Fungal primary carbon metabolism consists of many connected pathways to convert monosaccharides and other monomeric carbon sources. While many of the pathways have been described as single enzyme per…

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