With the beginning of the winter term 2021/22, our mass spectrometry seminar starts again (online). Students are welcome to attend our session. More information and the whole list of topics and dates can be found here.  

From 01.11.21 until 10.12.21 an extensive measurement campaign investigating the effects of e.g. diesel engine and wood stove particle emissions, was conducted by an international collaboration including several colleagues from Rostock and Munich. Aim of this campaing in the framework of AeroHealth, was the investigation of the negative health effects originating from different primary PM emission sources, as well as their products of atmospheric ageing.  

From 26 to 30th september 2021 two PhD students of our group had the chance to participate in the 2nd advanced end-user school of the EU_FT-ICR_MS project in Prague. At the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences different topics, ranging from metabolomics or petrolomics to new FTICR-MS measurement techniques, were presented and discussed with experts on the respective fields and partners of the EU_FT-ICR_MS project. Sightseeing and other group activities were also included, leading to an overall succesful exchange of ideas from young scientist and exciting new insights to other fields of research of our partners in europe.  

Within the framework of the BMWi project SAARUS - Optimization of scrubber exhaust gas scrubbing technology to reduce environmentally harmful ship emissions scientists of the University of Rostock, Universität der Bundeswehr München and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW) conducting the second measurement campaign at the research ship diesel engine located at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Marin Engineering (LKV). This campaign is focused on the effect of scrubbers on ship engine emissions of different fuels. Different operation conditions of scrubbers are tested, including closed- and open-loop with sea water from the baltic sea. Additionally, different filter types for further gas cleaning after the scrubber are evaluated. 

Successful meeting at the Seefeld site with colleagues from Munich and the industry partner to discuss initial results of the investigation of pharmaceutical products from shale oil, followed by a tour of the factory siteand a former shale oil mine.

In the framework off the TBI-TAB project measurements were carried out with a pyrolysis reactor of the company KUG in Forst. Different online measurements off recycling materials ( e.g. carbon or glass fibres) with photoionisation mass spectrometrie were succesfully applied and samples were collected for offline analysis in Rostock. 

Detailed overview off all projects from analytical chemistry in Rostock, the AeroHealth International Lab and the whole JMSC from the last 3 years.

Download progress report

During a short research stay (AeroHealth), Prof. Y. Rudich from the Weizman Institute of Science visited the University of Rostock and was able to successfully complete some FTICR measurements of aged wood pyrolysis aerosols. Furthermore, discussions about a long-term cooperation with the rector of the University of Rostock, Prof. W. Schareck, took place.

On thursday the 29.04.21 at 5pm Hendryk Czech is giving a lecture in the framework of his habilitation about the topic "Impact of Aerosols on Human Health".

More information can be found here.

We congratulate Anika Neumann to her passed PhD defence "Investigation of heavy petroleum-derived material with thermogravimetry coupled to high resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry".

We congratulate Julian Schade to his passed PhD defence with the topic "Investigation of Airborne Particles by On-Line Single-Particle Mass Spectrometry with Novel Ionization Approaches".

Within the framework of the BMWi project SAARUS - Optimization of scrubber exhaust gas scrubbing technology to reduce environmentally harmful ship emissions scientists of the University of Rostock, der Universität der Bundeswehr München and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW) conducting the first measurement campaign at the research ship diesel engine located at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Marin Engineering. In this eight week attempt, the physical and chemical characteristics of various shipping fuels are exploited. The fuel variety reaches from compliant marine gas oil up to heavy fuel oil with high Sulphur-content not tolerated according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations. This knowledge will be the basis to judge the effect of scrubber exhaust technology on the emissions in the upcoming project duration.

We congratulate Christian Gehm to his passed PhD defence.

The second project meeting of the SAARUS project took place a the IOW Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung in Warnemünde. In the meeting, the first measurement campain was discussed and planned. The aim of the project is the optimization of the scrubber technology for the reduction of ship emmisions. In the meeting paticipated the following project members:

• Universität Rostock, Lehrstuhl für Kolbenmaschinen und Verbrennungsmotoren & Institut für Chemie, Abteilung Technische und Analytische Chemie
• Universität der Bundeswehr München, Fakultät für Maschinenbau - Institut für Chemie und Umwelttechnik
• IOW Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung
• AVL Deutschland GmbH
• GEA Westfalia Separator Group GmbH
• RVT Process Equipment GmbH
• SULT GmbH

We congratulate Theo Schwemer to his passed PhD defence with the topic "Development and optimisation of a method for the characterization of unknown substances with gas chromatography coupled to ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry and atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation".

On Wednesday, the 22th of January, we had our anual trip of the course "modern methods in mass spectrometry and chromatography". This year, the 16 students visited the company Thermo Fisher Scientific in Bremen. In vivid presentations, the platform of modern mass spectrometry from benchtop orbitrap systems to isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) was presented. Besides technical details, different carriers of the employees were presented during lunch. The visit was completed by a factory tour, where the students got insights into the prosuction of analytical intruments.

We congratulate Uwe Käfer to his passed PhD defence with the topic " Integration of different sample inlets for high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry to investigate heavy petroleum fractions ".

We congratulate René Reiss to his passed PhD defence with the topic " Investigation and development of analytical techniques for trace level detection of drugs, explosives and their precursors".