Sreekanth joined the Institut Jožef Stefan in February 2021 and is very excited about starting his Ph.D. at the Dept. of Environmental Sciences-O2. He has been enrolled in the first-year degree program in Ecotechnologies at Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, completed his course work for the first year and is now enrolled for the second year.
After joining the research group, Sreekanth is being trained in various methods used in atmospheric Hg research. He has been introduced to the novel method of using 197Hg radiotracer and cold plasma in conducting laboratory Hg0 oxidation experiments. Besides, he is also trained in using the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer to detect GOM species generated from laboratory plasma-oxidation experiments. Sreekanth has also actively participated in training programs within the scope of the GMOS-Train objectives and has completed some online courses useful for his research work.
He is now working in the laboratory on Hg0 plasma oxidation experiments, KCl denuder specificity, and stability tests, Cation exchange membrane specificity, and breakthrough tests etc.
Apart from the interesting laboratory work, Sreekanth is also trained in handling the Tekran speciation unit used for online Hg air measurements together with ESRs 9 and 10. He has volunteered for weekly maintenance of the Tekran speciation unit under the supervision of Dr. Jože Kotnik, which is now placed in Ljubljana city.
Sreekanth is looking forward to attending further training offered by GMOS-Train, the winter school ERCA in France, and going for his planned secondments in coming months.