Sreekanth got this year off to a busy start by taking part in the ERCA winter school training, where he also presented a poster about previous laboratory experiments. Later, he continued his work with the cold mercury (non-radioactive) plasma oxidation experiments to generate known trace amounts of gaseous oxidized Hg species (HgO, HgCl2, and HgBr2). This approach will be used as a calibration method for GOM measurements in the Tekran Hg speciation unit. He has also submitted his first article this year for publication, which is currently under the review process in the journal of Environmental Pollution. On the basis of earlier studies with 197Hg radiotracer, he also co-authored an article that was published in the journal of analytical chemistry under the title ‘Calibration Approach for Gaseous Oxidized Mercury Based on Non-thermal Plasma Oxidation of Elemental Mercury’.
Sreekanth spent his first secondment at the CNRS in Toulouse, France to work under the supervision of his co-supervisor, Dr. Jeroen Sonke. During his secondment period from April to May, he had the opportunity to perform some gas-phase photooxidation experiments using a solar simulator. He was also introduced to the application of using Hg stable isotopes for studying Hg photochemical mechanisms. After the secondment, he took part in the IPSSC conference in Kamnik, Slovenia, where he gave both an oral presentation and a poster.
He presented all the results from previous laboratory experiments and upcoming work plans at the GMOS-train meeting held at Abisko between June 8–10, 2022. After returning from the Abisko meeting, he is currently working on field experiments with the Tekran Hg speciation unit (2537B-1135-1130) for testing the GOM calibration method developed by Gačnik et al. 2022, sampling losses from KCl-denuders, and several laboratory experiments using 197Hg radiotracer. Recently, Sreekanth participated in the ICMGP 2022 conference by delivering an oral and a poster presentation for the dissemination of his ongoing Ph.D. research work to the wider Hg research community. He is particularly thrilled about the impending work plan to perform kinetic experiments on gas-phase and surface mediated photoreduction of HgII species, in collaboration with the Department of Gaseous Electronics at the Jožef Stefan Institute.