Air pollution constitutes a significant risk factor for several severe health conditions including lung cancer and strokes. According to the 2021 WHO compendium on health and environment, atmospheric and indoor air pollution in 2016 caused the deaths of 4.2 million and 3.8 million people worldwide, respectively. The annual economic cost of air pollution-related health impacts is estimated to more than US$ 1.5 trillion. The Europe Environmental Agency estimates that, in 2019, approximately 307,000 premature deaths were attributable to PM2.5 in EU. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was linked to 40,400 premature deaths, and ground-level ozone was linked to 16,800 premature deaths. At Community and Member State level, priorities measures are needed:
- to reduce NOx emissions: modifications to domestic and industrial combustion plant including selective catalytic reduction; bans on open burning of waste;
- to reduce PM2.5 emissions: using cyclones and fabric filter dedusters for boilers in the commercial sector and new residential boilers and improvements to diesel vehicles;
- to reduce NH3 emissions by reducing nitrogen content in animal feed, fertilizer substitution, low-emission housing for poultry, more use of low ammonia application measures for pig and cattle manure;
- to reduce VOC emissions through control of fugitive losses in the chemicals industry and in refineries, control of the use of paints and solvents;
- to reduce SO2 emissions through the use of low Sulphur heavy fuel oils, flue gas desulphurisation, reducing the Sulphur content of fuels.
Sensing devices for air monitoring in NET4Air will be redesigned for miniaturization, reduced power consumption, green, autonomous functioning and increased sensitivity using customized sensitive layers (CNTs, Graphene, conductive polymers, metal oxides, and different dopants). While such sensors exist on the market, most are bulky, expensive, and imprecise. We are proposing the development and building of miniaturized, precise, and low-cost sensors and smart sensing systems using nanoelectronic technology and infrastructures (clean room, equipment available at the partner’ sites). Indoor air quality should be monitored especially for CO, CO2, NO2, methane, VOCs using simple and not expensive devices. Outdoor air quality may be even more important in the context of climate change and its effect on population health. Air sensors have been explored as a means of improving the spatial resolution of air pollution data beyond the existing monitoring network and for personal sampling. However, there are still issues of quality assurance for many of these devices when used in the field, particularly for mobile or personal monitoring. The most commonly used ambient gas sensors at this time are metal oxide (MOX) and electrochemical (EC) sensors, available for the monitoring of carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) and particulate matter (PM). Therefore, monitoring has a tremendous role in informing on both indoor and outdoor exposure and quantifying the risks associated with repetitive or long-term exposure to low levels of such gasses.
As for air remediation, this is a research field transformed over the past two decades by the integration of engineered nanoscale materials. The market for nanotechnology in environmental applications is rapidly growing, signifying the importance of such advancements in practice as well as research. Environmental remediation technologies cover an enormous range of applications that require problem-specific engineering solutions for successful implementation.
These approaches share common goals of contaminant degradation or sequestration and often make use of related phenomena such as reduction/oxidation (redox) reactions or adsorption processes. Organic contaminant removal, an area of major research focus in all air remediation approaches, heavily implements oxidation and reduction chemistry. In air treatments, oxidative photocatalysis using nanoscale materials is commonly investigated. Due to the similarity of the chemistry behind remediation processes, cross-pollination of ideas within NET4air will help produce meaningful scientific advancements. Therefore, training courses on “Air remediation technologies” developed within NET4Air will be aimed at identifying, analyzing, designing and evaluating technological and process interventions for the recovery and management of environmental quality and implement them at IMT and building the Centre for Excellence.