CAREER: Time- and size-resolved formation of secondary organic aerosol in indoor air

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AbstractProposal Title: CAREER: Time- and size-resolved formation of secondary organic aerosolin indoor airPrincipal Investigator: Michael WaringInstitution: Drexel UniversityProposal No: CBET- 1055584Dr. Michael Waring?s career goal is to promote best practices in engineering research and education while integrating unique indoor air pollution research with graduate and undergraduate instruction, community outreach, and educational infrastructure development. He endeavors to instill an enthusiasm within his students about the benefits of indoor environmental research?namely that it improves human health and our quality of life. These objectives are specifically achieved by: (1) applying dynamic and open-ended education practices to increase student involvement and learning; (2) developing a three-course indoor air quality curriculum, an indoor air research and teaching laboratory, an indoor air research and teaching web site, and a new outreach module each year; (3) integrating research and education with projects that engage university and high school students in high-quality experimental research, allowing them to produce scientific data; (4) exploring the chemistry and physics of indoor particle formation, a poorly understood area; and (5) soliciting educational and research mentors to evaluate him and guide him in his early career stages. The PI applies best teaching practices, such as active and cooperative learning, demonstrations that show microscopic phenomena on a macroscopic scale, and open-ended projects. Students are inquisitive about indoor air quality research since it directly impacts their own lives, and research is integrated into his teaching curriculum through indoor air-related class projects, which are both modeling and experimental in nature. Dr. Waring?s students will assess air pollution control methods in their own homes, help build a comprehensive online resource for indoor air quality education and research, and hone investigative and communication skills. Outreach activities will involve high school students in research, develop the mentoring skills of his graduate students, and impart enthusiasm for scientific discovery to K-12 students that are underrepresented in STEM education. By developing his teaching portfolio and working with an educational mentor, the PI will evaluate his own progress as a teacher and retain or incorporate successful pedagogical techniques into his coursework and outreach activities. Dr. Waring has actively researched indoor air pollution for over five years and has consistently investigated indoor secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Most SOA forms indoors from ozone reactions with terpenoids emitted by consumer products, and semivolatile products of these reactions either nucleate or partition to the particle-phase, yielding distributions with potentially high associated number and mass concentrations. Exposure to particulate matter is linked with adverse health effects, and SOA inhalation depends on the size-distribution that is formed. Though ozone and terpenoids are very common indoors, little is known about (i) how size-distributions of SOA evolve in time over the typical ranges of indoor environmental parameters (e.g. air exchange rate, temperature, humidity, background particle concentration); (ii) the actual magnitude of SOA formation indoors; and (iii) the contribution of SOA to total exposure to particulate matter for Americans. The proposed project thus will: (1) investigate with laboratory and field experiments the holistic effect of environmental parameters on time- and size-resolved SOA formation due to ozone/terpenoid reactions in the indoor air; (2) research, develop, and experimentally validate a robust model that predicts time- and size-resolved SOA formation over common ranges of indoor environmental parameters; and (3) apply that model to calculate the SOA exposure for typical Americans under varying conditions, such as product use rates, time-of-day, season, climatic zone in which the building is situated, etc.Graduate, undergraduate, and high school students will take part in this valuable research that will improve the indoor environment. The project will help position the PI as a leading investigator of indoor SOA formation, be evaluated regularly by a research mentor, and improve the lives of his students and the American public generally. The holistic effect of environmental parameters on time and size-resolved SOA formation will be determined, allowing the actual magnitude and character of SOA formation and exposure in various indoor environments to be established. Data and exposure predictions can facilitate manufacturing and policy decisions that result in safer products or better recommendations regarding appropriate product use. Also, the dataset of time- and size-resolved SOA formation in laboratory and field settings over common ranges and combinations of environmental parameters is novel and will be useful to other researchers and public health officials.