Indoor Air Quality
I’m interested in exposure to air pollutants indoors that are emitted from building materials and other sources inside the home. The graph shows measurements of selected VOCs such as formaldehyde and benzene made by the PTR-MS instrument inside a home in summer. VOCs levels are much higher indoors than outdoors (> 10x) and display a time of day variation induced by meteorological variation (temperature and wind) of the home’s natural air change rate. Understanding emissions from building materials and how to best ventilate homes and buildings to make them energy efficient and healthy is a major engineering challenge. While exposure to some indoor air pollutants is known to cause disease, current health research is also showing a link between indoor air pollutants and cognitive function and perhaps long term impairment. Since we spend ~90% of our time indoors it is important to understand how to reduce exposure to indoor pollutants.
Compost Emissions
Composting organic waste rather than landfilling is a great way for urban areas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and return stabilized carbon to soils. Large scale composting facilities exist in WA. For facilities to operate they need an air emissions permit for the VOCs that are emitted in the composting process. We are working with WA Dept. of Ecology and and a company called Engineered Compost Systems to better quantify VOC emissions from aerated static pile type compost systems. This research will help set guidelines for testing and emission factors for the state’s air permitting process.
Wine & Wildfires
We are involved in a new project to investigate the impact on wildfire smoke on wine grape taint. This is a very large multi-investigator project led by Oregon State University. Bad tasting wine results when grapes are exposed to too much smoke, impacting the wine industry in the Western US and Canada. We will be measuring the abundance of phenols and other air pollutants in wildfire smoke that are thought to cause grape taint. We want to know if chemical processing of phenols by wildfire plume oxidants (HO, NO3) reduces the occurrence of grape taint. The aim of the project is to help the wine industry better predict risk and manage wildfire smoke taint.