During the course of two months, a device was created and field-tested which continually samples atmospheric air for concentrations of ammonia and ammonium. Though still being refined, this sensor reliably measured nitrogen species during a variety of conditions: urban to rural settings, calm days to thunderstorms, dangerously high levels of ammonia/ammonium to next to nothing, and even while offshore in the Chesapeake Bay and Baltimore's Back River. Continual testing ranged in time from several hours to just under a week. All field-testing was carried out within the confines of the state of Maryland because it provided no death of infrastructural settings. Within the next several months this real-time sensor will be used as the primary data collection tool in a major study to model the fate and transport of ammonia/ammonium as a result of the changing agricultural trends on Maryland's eastern shore.

Return to REU Abstracts