Environmental Research at the Advanced Photon Source

Abstract

Because of the importance of probing molecular-scale chemical and physical structure of environmental samples in their natural and often hydrated state, synchrotron radiation has been a powerful tool for environmental scientists for decades. Thus, the crucial role that a highly coherent and high-brightness hard X-ray source such as the Advance Photon Source (APS) can play in addressing many of the outstanding questions in molecular environmental science (MES) was recognized even before “first light” at the facility. No single synchrotron-based technique or experimental approach can adequately address the tremendous temporal and spatial heterogeneities of the chemistry, physics, and biology of natural environmental samples. Thus, it is common at the APS that multiple X-ray techniques and experimental systems are employed to investigate environmental samples, often chosen for their ability to focus on solute species, plants, microbes, organics, interfacial species, or solids.

Acknowledgments

The assistance of Steve Davey in preparing this manuscript is greatly appreciated. Use of the APS was supported by the United States (US) Department of Energy Office of Science (US DOE-SC) Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. Funding for the presented work was provided by: 1) the U.S. DOE-SC, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Subsurface Biogeochemical Research Program, under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357; 2) the US DOE-OS, BES Geosciences Research Program through contracts DE-AC02-06CH11357; 3) the National Risk Management Research Laboratory of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Office of Research and Development (this paper has not been subjected to the USEPA's internal review; therefore, the opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official positions and policies of the USEPA). The submitted manuscript has been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne”). Argonne, a US DOE-SC laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The U.S. government retains for itself and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up, non-exclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said article to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government.