Measurement and Monitoring Methods for Air Toxics and Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Atmosphere Grants
EPA’s Science to Achieve Results Program (STAR) awarded over $4 million to seven universities to advance air measurement and monitoring methods for air toxics and contaminants of emerging concern in the atmosphere.
Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), often referred to as air toxics, are a subset of air pollutants known or suspected to be acutely toxic or cause chronic human health effects, or to have adverse environmental and ecological effects. Contaminants of emerging concern are chemicals that are not commonly monitored in the environment but are present in the environment and have the potential to cause adverse human health or environmental effects. These air contaminants tend to pose greater risks in urban areas because these areas have large populations and a higher concentration of emission sources, and there is extensive evidence that minority and low-income communities are disproportionally burdened with exposures to air toxics.
The goals of this research portfolio include advancements in measurement techniques that will support state, community and Tribal air monitoring efforts to reduce exposures to air toxics and emerging contaminants of concern; and improved source measurement methods that can be used to quantify emissions, develop emissions inventories, inform the development of effective emission control strategies, and ultimately improve public health.
The grants will fund the following research projects:
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
Award: $730,525
Project Title: Mapping Urban Emissions of Sub-10 nm Particles using a Mobile Platform
Principal Investigator: Markus Petters
The goal of the research is to use a mobile platform to quantify and characterize emissions of sub-10 nm particles. Specific objectives are to: 1) design and build a platform to measure the size, morphology, and elemental composition of sub-10 nm particles emitted to ambient air; and 2) demonstrate that the platform can be used for source identification, source apportionment studies, creation of detailed maps with emission inventories for sub-10 nm particles in urban environments. Expected outputs include: 1) a mobile sampling system with real-time mapping capability; 2) city-scale sub-10 nm concentrations for two urban centers in the southeastern U.S.; 3) a source inventory describing emissions from selected sources; and 4) a target inventory that will highlight geographic areas with a high likelihood of having high-toxicity sources. The main expected outcome of the proposed work is a new validated technique using a mobile near-source measurement system that quantifies the emission rates of fugitive sub-10 nm particle emissions.
University of California-Davis, Davis, California
Award: $799,660
Project Title: Assessing Toxic VOC Exposures with GC-CF-IMS
Principal Investigator: Anthony X. Wexler
The goal of the research is to develop a moderate-cost, portable, small, lightweight, low-power instrument for near real-time speciation and quantification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), in the ambient atmosphere and indoors. The objectives are to build, test, and field deploy a gas chromatography crossflow ion mobility spectrometer (GC-CF-IMS) that is moderate in cost, can provide measurements at good time resolution, requires low power, is compact and lightweight, and can identify individual HAP compounds. A community advisory committee will be formed to assist in developing a deployment strategy for field testing in such communities and in working with these communities to understand the study results and translate them into actions for reducing exposure to HAPs. The major expected outcome is increased capacity of communities to assess their exposure to HAPs.
More information.
University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
Award: $797,825
Project Title: Development of a Reference Method for Open-Path Remote Sensing of Air Toxics
Principal Investigator: Jochen Stutz
The goal of the research is to develop an open-source reference instrument and methodology for operation, validation, and QA/QC of open-path optical remote sensing (OP-ORS) monitoring of volatile organic compounds and other air toxics. Specific objectives are to: 1) design and build a portable open-path reference instrument for accurate detection and quantification of several air toxics; 2) validate the reference OP-ORS system with other analytical methods; 3) deploy the reference system in parallel with a current state-of-the-art OP-ORS system at a local refinery in the Los Angeles air basin to develop and test validation protocols; and 4) develop guidance for best practices for operation, QA/QC, and field validation for OP-ORS observations. The expected outcomes include the demonstration of a portable OP-ORS system for accurate quantification of several air toxics, and the establishment of OP-ORS as a reliable and trusted tool to monitor air toxic releases from industrial facilities and for community air quality monitoring of these compounds.
University of California-San Diego, San Diego, California
Award: $399,464
Project Title: Real-Time Analysis of Aerosol-Phase Plastic Additives in a Coastal Marine Environment in California
Principal Investigator: Jonathan H. Slade
This project aims to build on and improve online detection and quantification of several understudied toxic plastic additives of emerging concern in atmospheric aerosol. The approach is to employ extractive electrospray high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer (EESI-TOF) for online analysis of aerosol-phase components, complemented with analysis of aerosol filter extracts using Orbitrap liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (Orbitrap LC-ESI-MS2). Specific objectives are to: 1) calibrate an EESI-TOF for sensitive detection and quantification of targeted aerosol-phase plastic additives using isotopic internal standards; 2) expand on a current methodology for detection and quantification of targeted plastic additives in bulk water samples and extracts from high-volume aerosol filter samples employing Orbitrap LC-ESI-MS2; 3) quantify targeted plastic additives in the aerosol phase in the ambient coastal marine environment in San Diego, CA, in summer and winter using EESI-TOF in comparison to offline analyses applying Orbitrap LC-ESI-MS2 of water and high-volume aerosol filter samples; and 4) analyze targeted plastic additives in aerosol sampled in the field and how they evolve due to changing properties of seawater, wastewater outflow rates, and varying environmental conditions. The results of the research are expected to provide new insights and knowledge that will help to inform environmental management and risk assessment analyses of plastic additives.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Award: $799,833
Project Title: Development of High-Resolution Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry Methods for Real-Time Measurement of Emerging Airborne Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)
Principal Investigator: Jason D. Surratt
The goal of the research is to combine state-of-the-science online high-resolution chemical ionization mass spectrometers (HR-ToF-CIMS) together with novel air- and particle-phase sampling techniques to increase understanding of fugitive emissions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from stationary point sources. Specific objectives are to: 1) determine HR-ToF-CIMS calibration curves and detection limits for atmospherically-relevant PFASs; 2) oxidize PFAS standards with hydroxyl radicals (OH) and ozone under controlled laboratory settings to generate commercially-unavailable PFAS that are also key to understanding the atmospheric transformation and fate of PFAS ; and 3) deploy a mobile laboratory with these newly developed and laboratory-validated CIMS methods at a stationary point source to study fugitive PFAS emissions and PFAS near-source downwind chemistry. Expected outcomes include advancements in measurement techniques to measure ambient levels of gas- and particle-phase PFAS and advancements in near-source measurement methods for estimating emissions of PFAS.
Virginia Polytech Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia
Award: $800,000
Project Title: Enabling Real-Time, Low-Cost Measurement of Hazardous Air Pollutants
Principal Investigator: Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz
The goal of this project is to develop, characterize, and demonstrate a novel technique for a low-cost way of measuring organic hazardous air pollutants with high sensitivity and selectivity and at high time resolution. The expected outcomes include development and demonstration of prototype instruments that are easily deployable (autonomous and low in cost, size, and power draw) but also able to provide ambient concentrations of individual HAP species in near-real time. This technique would be ideally suited for fenceline monitoring, distributed measurements, source attribution, and community monitoring.
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