Impact/Purpose:

This core will provide critical information on the physical and chemical properties of ultrafine and fine aerosols to be used by health effect researchers in the other research cores. We will link state-of-the-art measurements with data analysis methods that will permit apportionment of the major source types contributing to airborne particulate matter (PM). The core will apportion particulate mater mass apportionments to support epidemiologic, toxicological, and clinical studies. We will develop methods to characterize particulate compositional changes as they are processed in the atmosphere in transit from the source to the receptor site with a focus on the identification of the chemical species contributing to the measured reactive oxygen species. We will use the data characterizing the composition of the ambient aerosol being concentrated for animal and clinical exposures in Rochester and state-of-the-art receptor models to apportion the sources of these particles.

Description:

The results from this core's studies will be essential to interpret the results of the other cores. These measurements will permit development of a delivery system to provide exposures of specific radical species on model particles for toxicological studies. Source apportionment of ambient PM will be made using the measured compositions of integrated particle samples, single particle size and composition data from ATOFMS measurements and particle size distributions to support epidemiological studies. The CMB-PMF results will provide a quantitative test of PMF source apportionments. We will collect ambient aerosol samples, providing them to the Toxicology Core for in vitro studies measuring particle toxicity. These results will be used to determine the relative toxicity of various species and apportioned source types.

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A suite of tools will be used to characterize ambient, source, concentrated and model aerosol size and composition. Particles will be sampled at different locations (urban and remote; eastern and western US) from various sources (i.e. roadways, power plants) to assess the effects of aging on the oxidative capacity of particles and the changes in their composition during transport. In addition to on-line size-resolved, chemical characterization, particles will be studied using a variety of off-line techniques. We will develop sampling techniques using spin trap agents to stabilize oxidative radicals so their chemical structures can be identified by chromatographic/MS and EPR analysis. Using ambient measurements of specific organic compounds made at selected STN sites, source apportionments using the CMB model will be made for STN sites at which PMF studies have apportioned the aerosol mass. CMB and PMF results will be compared for the STN sites to ascertain the ability of PMF to resolve source types.

Cost :$.00

Research Component :Health Effects

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