Research ArticleOpen AccessGoogle Scholar indexed
Portrait and Classification of Individual Haze Particulates
Weston High School, Weston, MA, USA
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 1 Weston High School, Weston, MA, USA
- 2 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 3 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 4 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 5 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 6 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 7 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 8 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 9 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 10 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 11 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 12 Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) & Hysitron Applied Research Center in China (HARCC), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
Journal of Environmental Protection·Volume 07 (2016)·Pages 1355–1379·Published 9 September 2016·DOI10.4236/jep.2016.710118
Copy link · social · email
Abstract
Haze (known as “Mai” 霾 in Chinese) threatens the health of billions of people across the globe. To begin solving this problem without severely slowing down the economy, one has to mechanistically and geographically pinpoint the sources of these pollutants, the key of which is to thoroughly characterize and fingerprint the particulates. Here we present a broad survey and classification of thousands of individual airborne particu-lates by using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to measure their diverse mor-phologies and chemistries, which could eventually be organized into a “haze finger-print database”. For instance, one collection in Xi’an City, China during March-April 2014 yielded 494 airborne particulates that settled on silicon wafers placed outside the window of a 3 rd floor office. These 494 particulates were manually imaged with high resolution (down to 2 nm), elementally mapped using Energy-dispersive X-ray Spec-troscopy (EDS), and were identified and categorized into presumed source classes such as construction activities (Ca, Al, Si-O), coal burning (sulfates), biologic (pollen, bac-teria), automotive, mining, steel making, and etc. About 20% of the particulates have mysterious origins, as it is still unclear how they were formed, and a fraction of them contained clearly hazardous elements such as lead and chromium. For future work, we propose using unmanned aerial vehicles with a special “rolling film” substrate that can autonomously collect airborne particulates, a customized SEM auto-imaging system, and machine learning software to establish an online open-access database. The end goal would be to monitor and analyze the particulate pollutants that are pumped into our atmosphere every day, and precisely track down their sources so we can better model and police the quality of the air around us.
KeywordsPM2.5PM10Air PollutionFingerprintRobot
- World Health Organization (2016) WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (Update 2016). http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/cities/en/
- Donkelaar, A.V. and Villeneuve, P.J. (2010) Global Estimates of Ambient Fine Particulate Matter Concentrations from Satellite-Based Aerosol Optical Depth: Development and Application. Environmental Health Perspectives, 118, 847-855. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901623
- China National Environmental Monitoring Centre (2013) Air Quality Report in 74 Chinese Cities in March and the First Quarter 2013. http://www.cnemc.cn/
- Huang, R.-J., et al. (2014) High Secondary Aerosol Contribution to Particulate Pollution during Haze Events in China. Nature, 514, 218-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13774
- Zhang, Q., He, K. and Huo, H. (2012) Policy: Cleaning China’s Air. Nature, 484, 161-162.
- Chen, R., Zhao, Z. and Kan, H. (2013) Heavy Smog and Hospital Visits in Beijing, China. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 188, 1170-1171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201304-0678LE
- Raaschou-Nielsen, O., et al. (2013) Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Incidence in 17 European Cohorts: Prospective Analyses from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE). The Lancet Oncology, 14, 813-822. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70279-1
- Wang, Y., Zhang, R. and Saravanan, R. (2014) Asian Pollution Climatically Modulates Mid-Latitude Cyclones Following Hierarchical Modelling and Observational Analysis. Nature Communications, 5, 3098. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4098
- Chinese State Council (2013) Atmospheric Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan. http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2013-09/12/content_2486773.htm
- China State Media Defends “APEC Blue” Skies (2014). https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-state-media-defends-apec-053337630.html?ref=gs
- US Environmental Protection Agency (2016) Particulate Matter Pollution. https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution
- Liu, J., et al. (2014) Source Apportionment Using Radiocarbon and Organic Tracers for PM2. 5 Carbonaceous Aerosols in Guangzhou, South China: Contrasting Local-and Regional-Scale Haze Events. Environmental Science & Technology, 48, 12002-12011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es503102w
- Ding, M., Han, W., Li, J., Ma, E. and Shan, Z. (2015) In Situ Study of the Mechanical Properties of Airborne Haze Particles. Science China Technological Sciences, 58, 2046-2051. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11431-015-5935-8