Angélica Bianco, Clermont Auvergne University, CNRS, Physical Meteorology Laboratory, UMR 6016

Have you ever wondered what's in the clouds? Yes, really, in the clouds, in the sky! Well, finding out is part of my research work.

I am Angelica Bianco, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique (University Clermont Auvergne-CNRS) and my work starts by sucking up the droplets that form the clouds (on the top of an extinct volcano, to add a bit of magic..) and condensing them to obtain an aqueous solution, which is characterized by physico-chemical and biological measurements.

I use FT-ICR mass spectrometry to explore the chemical composition of clouds. This is a real challenge, because cloud water is a very complex matrix, where the compounds are present in low concentration. Solid phase extraction is used to concentrate the matrix which is then analyzed by FT-ICR MS. This instrument from the Infranalytics platform, with the precious help of Edith Nicol, enabled us to identify a few thousand molecular formulas representative of several classes of compounds from primary emissions (lipids, peptides, carbohydrates, unsaturated hydrocarbons), or produced in the clouds by oxidation of organic matter. This instrument has also enabled us to show that the microorganisms present in the clouds are capable of using organic compounds as a substrate for their development, opening up a new research theme. Our last study aims to underline the difficulty of repeatability and the attribution of a molecular formula in high resolution mass spectrometry, and shows the need for the establishment of a precise methodology, based on analysis replicas. , to obtain reliable results.

But what is the point of understanding the composition of the clouds, which are miles above our heads? Clouds are the source of rain: have you ever heard of the phenomenon of acid rain?

Find out more: https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27227796

Platform used: LCM Palaiseau