About
The Deal lab will be beginning in July, 2025.
"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained [on]1 water" ~Loren Eiseley
Air-water interfaces surround us: the ocean surface, the surfaces of cloud droplets, the aerosols we breath in and out, even the glass of water we should all be drinking. Yet, for many years the air-water interface was simply treated as an insignificant part of the larger body of water. More recently, it has become clear that these interfaces are their own unique physicochemical environments, and an explosion of research has shown they are auspicious environments for unique chemistry. This unique chemistry may a huge impact on a variety of fields including environmental chemistry, climate, health, origins of life, materials development, and alternative energies.
We will be using cutting-edge analytical and physical chemistry concepts to better understand the unique environment that is the air-water interface. We will be combining surface-specific spectroscopy with sensitive mass spectroscopic techniques to develop the first-ever correlated surface structure and kinetics experiments. This new technique, alongside existing surface-specific spectroscopic techniques like Infrared and UV-Vis reflection absorption spectroscopies (IR-RAS and UV-Vis-RAS), will be used to investigate a number of fundamental questions that will be key to understanding the unique physicochemical properties of the air-water interface:
- What is the concentration gradient of solutes (e.g., salts, organic species, OH-/H3O+) in droplets? And how does this affect pH and reactivity?
- How do changes in temperature affect interfacial chemistry?
- What are the differences in a solute’s electronic structure at the water surface, and how do aqueous interfaces affect photochemistry?
I will be accepting students beginning late July 2025 - email me if you are interested!
1Originally "in water"
Publications: *most relevant
- *Deal, A., Bernal, F., Siebert, A., Prophet, A., Luna, M.L., Blum, M., Saykally, R., Wilson, K., “The role of the droplet interface in controlling the multiphase oxidation of thiosulfate by ozone” Chem. Sci. 2025. DOI: 10.1039/D5SC00379B
- *Deal A., Prophet, A., Bernal, F., Saykally, R., Wilson, K., “A Detailed Reaction Mechanism for Thiosulfate Oxidation by Ozone in Aqueous Environments” Environ. Sci. Technol. 2024, 58, 42, 18959-18968.
- Kim, P., Reynolds, R., Deal, A., Vaida, V., Ahmed, M., Wilson, K., “Accelerated Zymonic Acid Formation from Pyruvic Acid at the Interface of Aqueous Nanodroplets” J. Phys. Chem. Lett, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2024, 15, 44, 11131-11138.
- *Deal, A., “Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy (IRRAS) of Water-Soluble Surfactants: Is it Surface-Specific?” Appl. Spec. 2023, 77, 11, 1280-1288.
- Deal, A., Smith, A., Oyala, M., Campolo, G., Rugeley, B., Mose, T., Talley, D., Cooley, C., Rapf, R., “Infrared Reflection–Absorption Spectroscopy of α-Keto Acids at the Air–Water Interface: Effects of Chain Length and Headgroup on Environmentally Relevant Surfactant Films” J. Phys. Chem. A 2023, 127, 18, 4137-4151.
- Deal, A., Vaida, V., “Oxygen Effect on the Ultraviolet-C Photochemistry of Lactic Acid” J. Phys. Chem. A. 2023 127, 13, 2936-2945.
- Vaida, V., Deal, A., “Peptide Synthesis in Aqueous Microdroplets” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2022, 119, 44, e2216015119.
- Deal, A., Vaida, V., “Infrared Reflection-Absorption Spectroscopy of α-Hydroxyacids at the Water-Air Interface” J. Phys. Chem. A 2022, 126, 44, 8280–8294.
- Deal, A., Frandsen, B., Vaida, V., “Lactic acid photochemistry following excitation of S0 to S1 at 220 to 250 nm” J. Phys. Org. Chem, e4316.
- Deal, A., Rapf, R., Vaida, V., “Water–Air Interfaces as Environments to Address the Water Paradox in Prebiotic Chemistry: A Physical Chemistry Perspective” J. Phys. Chem. A 2021, 125, 23, 4929–4942.
- Kappes, K., Deal, A., Jespersen, M., Blair, S., Doussin, J-F., Cazaunau M., Pangui, E., Hopper, B., Johnson, M., Vaida, V., “Chemistry and photochemistry of pyruvic acid at the air–water interface” J. Phys. Chem. A 2021, 125, 4, 1036–1049.
- Frandsen, B., Deal, A., Lane, J., Vaida, V., “Lactic Acid Spectroscopy: Intra- and Intermolecular Interactions” J. Phys. Chem. A 2021, 125, 1, 218–229.
