Special Symposia

Aerosol Education

Organizers:
Tim Raymond (Bucknell Univ), Antti J. Lauri (Univ. Helsinki), Julia Schmale (Paul Scherrer Institut)

The late Professor Sheldon K. Friedlander is known in aerosol science and technology as a senior statesman and as one of the founders of the American Association for Aerosol Research. He coined the phrase "aerosol science and engineering is an enabling discipline" and worked tirelessly to popularize the concept of aerosol research enabling work in climate, health, energy, and the environment. Aerosol researchers would also like to improve the visibility and reputation of aerosol science among the general public, decision-makers, and other research disciplines to elucidate the connections of aerosols to these and other areas. This symposium seeks presenters who have developed courses, modules, demonstrations, experiments, activities, screen-casts, videos, or other media/works to present on what they have created/used and how it might be used and spread by others. Anything related to aerosols and used in education or museums, or published on the internet would be welcome.

 

Low-Cost and Portable Sensors

Organizer:
John Volckens (Colorado State Univ.), Jingkun Jiang (Tsinghua Univ.), Chuen-Jinn Tsai (National Chiao-Tung Univ.)

The recent proliferation of low-cost aerosol and gas sensors has sparked much interest among the scientific community. Such devices show promise to enable measurements at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales, which, in turn, can lead to the creation of distributed sensor networks to support both traditional research and community-based accountability studies. Low-cost sensors also show promise for the emerging field of citizen-science and for application in resource-limited environments. With these exciting prospects, however, come challenges of sensor performance, reliability, and data management. This symposium will review the state-of-the-science on low-cost sensor technologies with emphasis on sensor development, calibration and validation, and in-field applications.

 

Aerosols in Medicine

Organizers:
Andrew Martin (Univ. Alberta), Otmar Schmid (Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen), Philip Kuehl (Lovelace Biomedical)

The symposium will bring together scientists and engineers working to apply aerosol physics and chemistry to medical applications, in particular to inhalation drug delivery. Recent advances in medical aerosol delivery technologies will be presented, as well as methods to evaluate and predict aerosol deposition and subsequent disposition. Topics will include in vitro and in silico techniques used to predict the delivered dose of aerosols to various regions of the respiratory tract, and new and emerging aerosol technologies for drug delivery and diagnostics.

The symposium will be held over a single conference day, with morning and afternoon sessions that will include presentations from invited speakers and presentations selected from submitted abstracts. A poster session will be scheduled the same day, for additional submitted abstracts to be presented.

We encourage all aerosol scientists working in areas of application to medicine to submit an abstract and attend the symposium.

 

Air Quality in Megacities: from sources to control

Organizers:
Lupita Montoya (Univ. Colorado), Hector Jorquera (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Luisa Molina (Molina Center for Energy and the Environment)

Since 2007, the global population in urban areas has exceeded those in rural regions; in 2017, about 55% of the world’s population is now urban. Urban centers with more than 5 million people are commonly referred to as “megacities” and they have increased from less than 5 in the 1950’s to over 80 in 2017. These centers represent about 12.5% of the present global population. The interactions among emissions, air quality, and regional and global climates in these regions are not well understood but studies around the globe are being conducted to elucidate these interactions. This Special Symposium will present studies conducted in megacities around the globe. The focus of these studies will span health, chemistry, indoor/outdoor mixing, instrumentation, monitoring and control, as well as socioeconomic disparities.

 

Unraveling the many facets of ice nucleating particles and their interactions with clouds

Organizers:
Ryan Sullivan (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), Yutaka Tobo (National Institute of Polar Research, Japan), Heike Wex (Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research)

Nucleation of ice crystals by rare ice nucleating particles, with significant resultant effects on cloud properties, radiation, precipitation, and climate, remains one of the least well-understood atmospheric phenomena. In recent years considerable new efforts to address major questions regarding heterogeneous ice nucleation and cloud glaciation have been pursued, using experimental, in situ and remote sensing observations, modeling, and theoretical and molecular dynamics simulation approaches.

This symposium will bring together a wide range of perspectives and methodologies that are advancing our knowledge of: the sources, emissions, evolution, and properties of specific types of ice nucleating particles (INP); the contributions from different ice nucleation mechanisms to cloud glaciation; observations of atmospheric INPs and INP-cloud interactions; secondary ice formation; the evolution of mixed-phase and cirrus clouds; observational or modeling studies of the impacts of glaciation on cloud properties, precipitation, radiation, and climate, from cloud to global scales; and mechanistic studies, new theoretical treatments, molecular simulations, or parameterizations of these processes. New measurement approaches for determining the concentration, chemical composition, source, and properties of ice nucleating particles, and also of cloud droplet and ice particle residuals – that often require single-particle analysis – will be a particular focus.

 

Infectious Bioaerosol

Organizers:
Paul Dabisch (US DHS-NBACC), Richard Thomas (UK DSTL), Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate (US DHS-NBACC)

Inhalation of infectious bioaerosol particles is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality globally. For some diseases, such as influenza, tuberculosis, and melioidosis, inhalation represents a natural route of exposure. In these cases, microorganism-containing aerosols may be generated from the respiratory tract of infected individuals, such as in the case of influenza or tuberculosis, or generated from environmental sources, as is suspected in the case of melioidosis. For other infectious diseases where inhalation exposure has not been implicated in the natural spread of the disease, the inhalation route of exposure may still be relevant in cases where aerosols are intentionally generated for nefarious reasons, such as the 2001 anthrax attacks. This symposium will explore a range of topics related to infectious bioaerosols, including disease transmission, bioaerosol persistence in the environment, assessment of infectivity, and the development of therapeutics.

 

Oxidation Flow Reactors: Development, Characterization, and Application to Aerosols

Organizers:
Jose Jimenez (Univ. Colorado), William Brune (Penn State Univ.), Andy Lambe (Aerodyne), Jay Slowik (Paul Scherrer Institut), Qi Chen (Peking Univ.)

Oxidation flow reactors (OFRs) are rapidly growing as a means to study secondary aerosol formation. Several designs are in use or under development for laboratory and field applications. There are many open questions on their characterization, as well as on the comparability of their results with the ambient atmosphere and traditional environmental chambers. OFRs are being applied to many problems, including in situ characterization of the aerosol formation potential of different pollution sources and ambient air, as well as to many different laboratory studies. This special symposium invites presentations on topics related to OFRs, including: (a) new OFR designs and techniques, such as: different geometries, flow rates and patterns, oxidant/radical precursors, and photolysis wavelengths; (b) characterization of OFR fluid dynamics, gas- or condensed-phase chemistry, aerosol formation, and other key properties; (c) applications of OFRs to laboratory, source, and field studies; (d) intercomparison studies of OFRs with traditional chambers or ambient air.

 

Combustion-Generated Aerosols: The desirable and undesirable

Organizers:
Richard Axelbaum (Washington Univ.), Markus Kraft (University of Cambridge), Miki Oljaca (Cabot Corporation), Stephen Tse (Rutgers University), Xuebin Wang (Xi'an Jiaotong University)

This symposium explores the interplay between two fields bridged by combustion science – materials synthesis and fuel-generated aerosols. Combustion, which involves high-temperature chemical reactions that produce products and heat, can be a source of a wide range of aerosols, from desirable nanomaterials to undesirable byproducts of fossil fuel combustion. Papers are sought in the general area of flame-generated materials, but of particular interest are papers that touch on the interplay between both fields. For example, an understanding of soot formation during hydrocarbon combustion can aid the understanding of nanoparticle synthesis of non-carbonaceous materials; instrumentation such as phase-selective Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), which was developed for materials synthesis, can find applications in fly ash formation during coal combustion. This symposium seeks to explore research that is relevant to both fields and the synergy that this can bring.

 

Aerosols and Health – Connecting the Dots

Organizers:
Otmar Schmid (Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen), Vishal Verma (Univ. Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Sagnik Dey (Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi)

Epidemiology and toxicology have presented a large body of data on adverse health effects of inhaled ambient and engineered particles using a wide array of assays, methods and metrics. Connecting these “dots” remains a challenging task, but recent advances in particle toxicology may pave the way for a coherent picture linking particle dose and hazard factor to disease outcome.

Evidence for the pivotal role of dose and dose metric – rather than exposure concentration – and advances in correlating in vitro toxicity and in vivo animal data as reference frame for disease outcome are presented. Moreover, innovations in toxicity modelling, structured data analysis and new insights from epidemiological studies offer the perspective for linking in vitro testing with human health risk. These efforts are facilitated by advanced particle exposure studies utilizing functional assays (e.g. ROS, oxidative potential, omics) and advanced aerosol technology linking exposure levels to lung deposited (or cell deposited) dose.

We especially encourage submission of abstracts addressing synergistic and comparative aspects of toxicology, epidemiology, risk assessment and aerosol science. Topics including oxidative properties, biologically relevant dose metrics, hazard classification and dose-based aerosol exposure/dosimetry systems, methods for exposure-dose conversion, in vitro/in vivo/human conversion and epidemiological studies going beyond mass concentration will be considered.

The symposium will identify avenues for improved inter-disciplinary exchange and bring together aerosol scientists/engineers, material scientists as well as toxicologists, epidemiologists and regulatory bodies working to in risk assessment of inhaled particles.