Emissions of Monoterpenes and DMS from Corn and their Influence on Nighttime Chemical Processing of Nitrogen Oxides

In the United States large amounts of corn are grown for the use as animal feed, for the food industry and for the production of fuel ethanol. In 2012 the acreage of corn planted was 390,000 km2 covering over 4.2% of the US land surface. The BioCORN 2011 field experiment took place in summer 2011 to look at ecosystem fluxes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from a cornfield in Colorado during the period of rapid biomass increase and the development of flowers and ears. Eddy covariance, soil and leaf cuvette measurements using various instruments including PTR-MS, NI-PT-CIMS and GC-MS were used to determine fluxes of VOCs, CO2 and NOx. Corn plants emit significant amounts of VOCs with methanol being the largest emission and smaller emissions of other VOCs such acetone, acetaldehyde, monoterpene and dimethylsulfide (DMS). During the day VOCs mainly react with hydroxyl radicals and during the night with nitrate radicals (NO3), where emissions from corn may act as a sink for reactive nitrogen. DMS, mainly emitted from oceans and to a lesser extent from terrestrial vegetation, had a diurnal cycle: mixing ratios high during the night, but fluxes high during the day. DMS was found to dominate the reactivity of NO3 followed by monoterpenes and the heterogeneous loss of N2O5, which has implications for the nighttime chemistry. Other results of BioCORN 2011 on VOC emissions from corn and their impact on atmospheric chemistry will be presented and discussed.