Identifying and Evaluating Air Filtration Methods for Personal Protection from Airborne Particulate Matter
Abstract
Air pollution is a major environmental health risk in both developing and developed
countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is responsible
for more than two million deaths worldwide every year. The WHO recognizes that particulate
matter (PM) is the most dangerous among the various air pollutants and affects more
people than any other. Exposure to fine particulate matter is dominated by emissions
from anthropogenic point sources such as from vehicles, industry and power plants;
for larger, coarse particulate matter the major sources are from road dust, construction
and wind-blown dust from agricultural areas. Most approaches to reduce exposure involve
controls on the emitting sources. Though this approach reduces the health risks,
it cannot sufficiently protect our sensitive populations from point source PM, especially
fine PM. Air filtration devices such as personal face mask filters are rapidly implementable
solutions to reduce fine PM exposure at the point of contact. Most personal face mask
filters are designed as single-use devices for the medical and chemical industries;
whereas an air filter designed for the general population must allow for multiple
uses and protection from PM. Given a set of criteria, the conceptual personal filtration
device was evaluated in a case study of China where, if the devices were adopted by
the population, health costs associated with fine PM exposure are estimated to be
reduced by up to 87% ($ 223 billion).
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3706Citation
Ramadan, Ramsey (2011). Identifying and Evaluating Air Filtration Methods for Personal Protection from Airborne
Particulate Matter. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3706.Collections
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