Proposal for Development of Mass Closure via PNNL PESA for Continuous Fine, Very fine, and Ultra-fine Aerosol Sampling for Health Impact Studies
EMSL Project ID
35597
Abstract
"One of the most urgent needs for future progress in reducing the substantial impacts of ambient air particulate matter (PM) on human health is to determine which of the components are having the greatest effect.... Furthermore, because of cost considerations, there is virtually no prospect of collecting the data needed by health researchers for more definite analyses as long as there is continued reliance on current FRM (EPA filter based) sampling and analysis methodologies." (Lippmann, M, 2009). Further, ultra fine particles (< 0.1 micrometer diameter) are heavily implicated in 4 of the 6 main potential causal reasons for death and morbidity due to aerosols (Devlin, EPA, 2003). It is clear that no amount of tinkering with filter based samplers can resolve the problem. A radically new approach is needed, based on focused energy beams.
For these reasons, the DELTA Group has in the past decade developed methods to economically generate such data, all of which require directed energy beams for their implementation (optical spectrometry and soft beta rays at Davis, polarized x-rays S-XRF at the ALS, LBNL.) We have designed and validated an enhancement of the well tested UC Davis DELTA Group 8 stage DRUM impactor (3 hr resolution) to allow both integrated (2 week) and continuous (3 hr) collection and analysis of ultrafine (<0.09 micrometer) particulate matter.
However, full analysis of these samples requires capabilities not available at Davis or LBNL that are available at EMSL, PNNL. This is especially true for the analysis of the organic surrogate hydrogen by proton elastic scattering analysis (PESA) with proton beams. Without this capability, we can not achieve mass closure. The second is Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) that serves as both a key quality assurance and operational backup to the S-XRF system and a better way to get very light elements (and some heavy metals) poorly seen by S-XRF.
These capabilities will be evaluated this summer at a major test in Cleveland, funded by the US EPA, with UC Davis sole source of particle collection and analysis. We wish to have EMSL a partner in this effort that could and should lead to an entirely new way of collection and analyzing US aerosols and an essential link to human health impacts.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2009-09-17
End Date
2010-09-19
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator