Impact of Airborne Heavy Metals on Lung Disease and the Environment

我们目前的P42项目（项目5）涉及用于过滤的天然和回收纤维材料 对土壤修复的影响这一补充供资请求（项目5）直接针对 2019冠状病毒病疫情日益严重，以天然纤维作为个人防护过滤介质为基本主题。 COVID-19大流行的快速传播不仅成倍增加了P42社区的风险， 从土壤/空气污染的颗粒物和重金属，但现在增加的风险的病毒。 为社区提供低成本可重复使用和可生物降解的个人防护设备（PPE）解决方案 会有巨大的价值最需要的物品之一是PPE口罩，不仅适用于医疗保健提供者， 而是广大公众有越来越多的使用口罩的所有弥补和配置，他们的使用是去 以指数方式增加。各种联邦简报都强调了每个人都需要戴口罩， 全世界每天可以佩戴超过5亿个口罩。数亿只N95口罩在 全球生产和使用。在大多数情况下，这些都是一次性使用后处理（最多2-3次） 这将导致大量的垃圾被填埋。这将导致大量有害的环境影响 在未来的几年里。在这个项目中，我们提出了创新而实用的科学来开发天然纤维（生物基） 符合NIOSH N95过滤效率（FE）标准的可生物降解过滤材料。生物基 解决方案是基于亚微米再生纤维素天然纤维（RNCF）和少量的纺织级 碳纤维（TCF），将被设计用于涡轮电动增压，赋予相互作用，以捕获和杀死 病毒（ES）基于RNCF的过滤材料将同样有效地代替（或补充）合成材料。 聚丙烯（PP）基2 µm直径，50克/平方米（gsm）过滤材料（不可生物降解） 目前，N95口罩的使用。这项工作将提供一个有形的完整概念，以产品解决方案的实施 该团队已经在开发的可重复使用的口罩中的RNCF材料。整个解决方案将是 环保，安全，符合NIOSH标准。本项目开发的材料将 根据NIOSH 42 CFR 84测试，对固体和液体气溶胶的过滤效率至少为95% 不含油。该产品将传播到P42生态系统，包括医疗保健提供者 和整个社区将以调查、问卷等形式征求这些团体的反馈， 培训和数据将进行统计分析，并成为主要P42赠款的一部分。该项目 田纳西大学（UT）、橡树岭国家实验室（ORNL）、 亚拉巴马在伯明翰和P42社区。

Our current P42 project (Project 5) deals with natural and recycled fiber materials for filtration targeted toward soil remediation. This supplemental funding request (for Project 5) directly addresses the needs of the growing COVID-19 pandemic, with the base theme of natural fibers as filtration media for personal protection. The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic exponentially increases the risk to the P42 community not only from the soil/air contamination with particulate matter and heavy metals, but now the added risk of the virus. Providing low cost reusable and biodegradable personal protection equipment (PPE) solutions to the community will be of immense value. One of the most needed items are PPE masks not only for the health care provider but the public at large. There is growing use of masks of all make ups and configurations, and their use is going to multiply exponentially. The various federal briefings have emphasized the need for a mask for every person, and over 500 million masks could be worn on daily basis world-wide. Hundreds of millions of N95 masks are in production and use worldwide. For the most part, these are disposed after single use (2-3 times at the most) which will result in gigantic quantities in landfill. This will result in massive detrimental environmental implications for years to come. In this project we propose innovative yet practical science to develop natural fiber (biobased) biodegradable filter materials that will meet the NIOSH standards for N95 filter efficiency (FE). The biobased solution is based on sub-micron regenerative cellulose natural fibers (RNCF) and small amounts of textile grade carbon fiber (TCF) that will be designed for turboelectric charging that impart the interaction to capture and kill the virus(es). The RNCF based filter material will be equally effective in lieu (or complement) of the synthetic polypropylene (PP) based 2 µm diameter, 50 grams per square meter (gsm) filter materials (not biodegradable) currently used in the N95 masks. The work will deliver a tangible full concept to product solution for implementing the RNCF material in reusable masks that the team is already developing. The entire solution will be environmentally friendly, safe and will meet NIOSH standards. The materials developed in this project will be tested against the NIOSH 42 CFR 84 for a minimum 95% filtration efficiency against solid and liquid aerosols that do not contain oil. The product will be disseminated to the P42 ecosystem including the health care providers and the community. The feedback from these groups will be sought in the form of surveys, questionnaires, training and the data will be statistically analyzed and become a part of the main P42 grant. The project is collaborative between The University of Tennessee (UT), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), University of Alabama at Birmingham and the P42 community.