Anna McBeath

The analysis of the structure and degradation of Black Carbon in terrestrial environments

Black Carbon (BC) is the solid residue that forms from the incomplete combustion of biomass and fossil fuels can be described as a continuum of different BC materials. The successful identification and quantification of BC is complicated by a lack of a standardised and accepted method to measure BC with techniques being more or less sensitive to different parts of the BC continuum.

Anna’s research aims to take the first steps to improve the accuracy of BC identification and quantification to allow various scientific questions related to BC degradability, soil fertility, fire history and the Earth’s slow-cycling carbon pools to be addressed and better understood.

Her research falls into the CRC’s Program 3 research area.

Objectives:

• Determine whether the ‘graphiticness’ of BC is a good measure to differentiate and quantify BC in environmental matrices
• Bring together a range of BC analytical methods and determine their speciation capacities in order to assign them to a specific range within the BC continuum
• Identify key chemical changes within to BC matrix over time, in order to understand its degradation mechanisms.

For more information, email Anna.