What are the health-relevant aerosol metrics? Again, in our last experiment, we found that, at the real atmospheric conditions observed (i.e., daily PM1 from less than 4 to more than 50 μg m−3), high (low) mass concentrations of PM1, as well as black carbon (BC) and water-soluble Oxidative Potential (WSOP) do not necessarily translate into high (low toxicity). Preliminary findings (more detailed manuscripts in preparation) here:
https://www.mdpi.com/1610006
Great work! It reminds me of the infamous POP's (the "dirty dozen") that have "poisoned" all people north of the 60th parallel in Canada.
Dear Francesca Costabile . See the following useful RG link: Article Health-related aerosol measurement: A review of existing sam...
Kindly see also the following useful RG links: Article Aerosols and health: A challenge for chemical and biological analysis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/aerosol-measurement
Also check please the following useful RG link: Article Effect of global atmospheric aerosol emission change on PM 2...
The following RG links are also very useful: Article A review of the risks and disease transmission associated wi...
Article Aerosol Health Effects from Molecular to Global Scales
Visit also the following useful RG link: Article Surface area is the biologically most effective dose metric ...
pm1 is an important indicator that is not taken into account in the recommendations in practice (PM2.5 is used as the main one) - we are starting to look towards the specific surface of all particles in the air - - since it reflects the chemical activity of particles -- // -- while we see that submicron particles make the most significant contribution to this indicator
Thank you for replying and for the links to interesting papers.
@Alex: in our introductory paper above you might find PM1, total particle surface concentration and lung deposited surface area, all against biological endpoints. You might see that these integral metrics cannot track alone toxicity, at least in our case study. The complexity goes beyond that, and we are preparing other manuscripts to address it
Hi Francesca, I hope you are doing well. I have just started to work on the toxicology and I recently found out that oxidative potential it might be not an adequate measure of toxicity for aerosol particles. This is partly because the measurement techniques rely on measuring the reactive oxygen atoms that can induce oxidative stress. So, for example, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (eg C20H12), will not show any oxidative potential, despite is notoriously toxic. There's a very interesting paper describing this, which I'm copying below. Please get in touch if you want to chat further.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584920308868?via%3Dihub
Hi Aristeidis!
Indeed, there are still too many gaps in the topic, which we have to investigate. Just to give you an example, in our experiments, we work on "real" conditions, i.e. real PM1 concentrations (a few ug m-3 and not tens of mg m-3), without sampling upon filters (which might produce several artifacts).
We aim at characterizing the physicochemical properties and toxicity of the "real" aerosol mixtures in the atmosphere. This is different from most of the works in the literature, but this is what we are now ready to go on. The combined effects of particle size and chemistry, the partitioning of vapors between gas and condensed phase, just to be more on the point, are topics that we have to include in the big picture. At least...
Still a lot of work ahead!
Thanks a lot for the paper.
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