CAREER: Physical transformations of aerosols after transport between indoor and outdoor environments

虽然室外空气污染会缩短人的寿命，但实际上人们大部分时间都是在室内度过的。家庭、学校、办公室和其他建筑物内的空气不断地与外部空气交换。因此，了解这种交换如何影响这两个空间的空气污染，以充分评估人类健康风险是很重要的。近几十年来，美国的室外污染有所减少，而室内空气污染源变得更加重要，这一点尤其正确。该项目的目标是了解被称为气溶胶（空气中细颗粒的悬浮物）的空气污染物在室内和室外环境之间运输时是如何变化的。这一目标将通过实验室和现实世界环境的实验相结合来实现，以测量气溶胶的物理和化学转化。这项研究的成功完成将为保护人类健康提供有关气溶胶的新知识。该研究计划将与教育活动相结合，以培养下一代科学家。这项工作的一个关键方面是把重点放在培训科学家成为更好的公共传播者上，以帮助改善美国的STEM劳动力和提高科学素养。CAREER项目的目标是研究气溶胶在室内和室外环境之间传输时的物理性质是如何变化的。这一目标将通过三个研究目标来实现：i)测量室外气溶胶暴露于室内环境条件时的物理转化；Ii)量化室内前体形成的二次有机气溶胶和一次室内气溶胶的氧化老化；iii)研究真实家庭的室内排放物在氧化环境中发生的物理转变。这项研究的成功完成将产生关于室内活动排放的二次有机气溶胶前体的新数据，从而将室外现场活动中发现的室内空气污染物的证据联系起来。这项工作还将为环境卫生和流行病学专业人员保护人类健康的努力提供信息，并有助于开发更好的仪器和低成本传感器。该研究将与教育活动相结合，以激励学生向更广泛的受众传播科学主题。这将鼓励下一代学生从事科学和工程方面的职业，并加强公众对空气污染主题的了解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Although outdoor air pollution is known to shorten human lives, people actually spend most of their time indoors. Air inside homes, schools, offices, and other buildings constantly interchanges with outside air. It is thus important to understand how this interchange affects air pollution in both spaces to fully assess human health risk. This is particularly true as outdoor pollution in the USA has decreased in recent decades while indoor sources of air pollution become more important. The goal of this project is to understand how air pollutants known as aerosols (suspensions of fine particles in air) change while they are transported between indoor and outdoor environments. This goal will be achieved through a combination of experiments in laboratory and real-world settings to measure physical and chemical transformations of aerosols. Successful completion of this research will contribute new knowledge about aerosols to protect human health. The research program will be integrated with educational activities to train the next generation of scientists. A key aspect of this effort is a focus on training scientists to become better public communicators to help improve the Nation’s STEM workforce and increase scientific literacy.The goal of this CAREER project is to investigate how physical properties of aerosols change once they are transported between indoor and outdoor environments. This goal will be achieved through three research objectives: i) measure the physical transformation of outdoor aerosols as they are exposed to indoor environmental conditions; ii) quantify the formation of secondary organic aerosols from indoor precursors and the oxidative aging of primary indoor aerosols; and iii) investigate the physical transformations that indoor emissions from a real home undergo in an oxidative environment. Successful completion of this research will generate novel data on secondary organic aerosol precursors that are emitted by indoor activities to contextualize the evidence of indoor air pollutants found in outdoor field campaigns. This work will also inform efforts by environmental health and epidemiological professionals to protect human health, as well as contribute to the development of better instrumentation and low-cost sensors. The research will be integrated with education activities to inspire students to communicate scientific topics to broader audiences. This will encourage the next generation of students to pursue careers in science and engineering, and enhance public understanding of air pollution topics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.