Grantee Research Project Results
Assessing Toxic VOC Exposures with GC-CF-IMS
EPA Grant Number: R840422Title: Assessing Toxic VOC Exposures with GC-CF-IMS
Investigators: Wexler, Anthony S. , Young, Tom , London, Jonathan
Institution: University of California Davis
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: May 1, 2022 through May 7, 2025
Project Amount: $799,660
RFA: Measurement and Monitoring Methods for Air Toxics and Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Atmosphere (2021) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Endocrine Disruptors , Environmental Engineering , Watersheds
Objective:
Currently, there are no portable, modest-cost instruments for measuring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere that are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). The objective of this project is to develop such an instrument and deploy it in cooperation with underrepresented communities who have VOC HAPs in the air they breathe.
Approach:
There are many thousands of volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere. Over a hundred are toxic and included on EPA’s HAPs list. With so many VOCs in the atmosphere, 2-dimensional analytical techniques are needed to separate the toxic ones from the benign ones. The conventional approach is gas chromatography followed by mass spectrometry, so-called GC-MS. But mass spectrometry requires high vacuum so is heavy and requires a lot of power. The approach in this project is to us gas chromatography as the first separation, but then use ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) instead of mass spectrometry as the second separation, so called GC-IMS. Conventional IMS has relatively low mobility resolution. We have developed a type of IMS called cross-flow ion mobility spectrometry (CF-IMS) that has about 8 times the mobility resolution of conventional IMS. This is important because of the large number of similar VOCs in that atmosphere that need to be separated in order to distinguish the toxic VOCs from the benign ones.
Expected Results:
This project will develop a new instrument suitable for under resources communities to use to detect VOC HAPs in the air they breathe and use this information to motivate emissions controls leading to cleaner air and consequently improved health.
Supplemental Keywords:
ambient air, indoor air, health effects, human health, chemicals, environmental chemistry, monitoring, analytical, environmental justiceProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.