Public Research Seminar by Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, Function Hub, HKUST(GZ) - Emissions of Particulate Matter and Volatile Organic Compounds from Wildfires and their Impacts on Outdoor and Indoor Air Quality

Due to a combination of climate change and fire suppression, wildfires are becoming larger and more frequent in the western United States. Biomass burning is the largest global source of carbonaceous particulate matter (PM), and the second largest global source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere. Many of these emissions have human health impacts, and their atmospheric transformations produce hazardous secondary pollutants. However, there is a lack of comprehensive molecular-level understanding of organic compounds in wildfire smoke, due to the chemical complexity and wildfires’ relatively episodic nature. Also, since people mainly shelter indoors during smoke events, the infiltration of smoke particles into buildings determines people’s exposure to PM. However, the protection against smoke provided by buildings is usually overlooked in exposure assessments. In this talk, I will focus on the non-targeted characterization of PM and VOCs from wildfires, the impact of atmospheric aging on these smoke ingredients, and the effects of fire emissions on urban ozone formation. I will also show how the indoor air quality in California buildings was affected by wildfires, using data acquired by low-cost PurpleAir particle sensors.