Integrated human exposure to air pollution

The book “Integrated human exposure to air pollution” aimed to increase knowledge about human exposure in different micro-environments, or when citizens are performing specific tasks, to demonstrate methodologies for the understanding of pollution sources and their impact on indoor and ambient air quality, and, ultimately, to identify the most effective mitigation measures to decrease human exposure and protect public health. Taking advantage of the latest available tools, such as internet of things (IoT), low-cost sensors and a wide access to online platforms and apps by the citizens, new methodologies and approaches can be implemented to understand which factors can influence human exposure to air pollution. This knowledge, when made available to the citizens, along with the awareness of the impact of air pollution on human life and earth systems, can empower them to act, individually or collectively, to promote behavioral changes aiming to reduce pollutants’ emissions. Overall, this book gathers fourteen innovative studies that provide new insights regarding these important topics within the scope of human exposure to air pollution. A total of five main areas were discussed and explored within this book and, hopefully, can contribute to the advance of knowledge in this field

Proceedings of Abstracts 12th International Conference on Air Quality Science and Application

© 2020 The Author(s). This an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Final Published versio

Microwave plasma synthesis of graphene and its laser-optical in situ characterization

Graphene and its derivatives possess exceptional electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties, which enable the use of these materials in numerous existing and emerging applications. Accordingly, large-scale graphene produc-tion is needed to fulfill the expected demand for this material. However, the current examples of graphene mass fabrication through top-down scalable approaches, e.g., liquid-phase exfoliation and chemical graphene oxide reduction, are incapable of consistently producing graphene at the quality levels needed to exploit its unique properties in applications. Gas-phase microwave-assisted synthesis of free-standing few-layer graphene is a promising technique for the economical production of high-quality material. The gas-phase approach makes the method continuous, scal-able, and highly tunable. However, little is known about the underlying physical and chemical processes, e.g., the kinetics of graphene formation and growth or the flakes morphology in the aerosol phase. This information is required to characterize and optimize production. Currently, the synthesis parameters are usually found empiri-cally, through a combination of trial-and-error parametric studies and ex situ materials characterization, which is time-consuming and often intrusive. There is a corresponding need to develop measurement tools that can help to build a fundamental understanding of the synthesis process, monitor the quality of produced graphene in situ, and ultimately find ways to increase yield while maintaining graphene high quality. On the other hand, the in-creasing production rates of graphene aerosols lead to occupational exposure and potential adverse health effects. Hence, reliable aerosol morphology characterization is critical to the regulation of graphene aerosol production and handling. This thesis seeks to deploy laser-optical in situ diagnostics to assess the aforementioned challenges. Time-resolved laser-induced incandescence (TiRe-LII) technique is applied to graphene aerosols for the first time to measure the graphene volume fraction and specific surface area in situ. Moreover, the TiRe-LII enables distin-guishing between graphene flakes and soot particles, which are often formed during the synthesis as the unde-sired by-product. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) absorption spectroscopy is used as an in situ line-of-sight technique to measure gaseous species involved in graphene synthesis. The laser-optical diagnostics were comple-mented with chemical kinetics simulations and mass spectrometry measurements to reveal the factors playing a major role in graphene formation kinetics. Additionally, the optical properties and morphology of synthesized graphene flakes were characterized using aerosol diagnostics and numerical simulations. Consequently, the con-nection between the graphene morphology and optical properties was established, and the spectroscopic model of crumpled graphene flakes was developed

Innovative Applications of Laser Remote Sensing of Gases, Aerosols and Wind

Over the years, a major component of the research carried out at the Optical Remote Sensing Laboratory of the City College of New York has been on active sensing technologies and their different applications in atmospheric studies. This thesis builds upon and looks to further advance this field by demonstrating innovative applications of laser remote sensing technologies for studies involving trace gases, aerosol particles and wind; which are key components of the Earth’s atmosphere. First, we present the demonstration of gas concentration measurements using a quantum cascade laser open path system with characteristics that make it promising for mobile and/or multidirectional remote detection of gas leaks. This work looks to address an important environmental concern as fugitive methane emissions from industrial plants and pipelines can contribute to the global increase of greenhouse gas concentration and are a security and safety issue because of the risk of fire, explosion or toxicity. Second, we present horizontal measurements of the spatial distribution of aerosols over New York City using a scanning eye-safe elastic micro-pulse lidar system. Two case studies are presented in which different methodologies are applied in order to estimate the backscatter and extinction coefficients. These observations demonstrate capabilities to monitor local emission sources and rapid transport of aerosols, which are of great importance for air quality monitoring in urban areas due to the harmful effects of particulate pollution on human health. Lastly, we present the analysis of airborne wind measurements using a micro pulse Doppler lidar and comparison against ground measurements. Moreover, in order to evaluate the performance of the airborne system, we investigate some of the factors that may influence wind measurement uncertainty and provide insights on how to improve measurement precision while minimizing errors

Current Air Quality Issues

Air pollution is thus far one of the key environmental issues in urban areas. Comprehensive air quality plans are required to manage air pollution for a particular area. Consequently, air should be continuously sampled, monitored, and modeled to examine different action plans. Reviews and research papers describe air pollution in five main contexts: Monitoring, Modeling, Risk Assessment, Health, and Indoor Air Pollution. The book is recommended to experts interested in health and air pollution issues

Urban Informatics

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity

Urban Informatics

This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity