Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Poor air quality is a major concern with respect to the public health and environment. TZOA is a Canadianx000D
company that develops sensors for air quality monitoring. Most of the sensors developed in this field measurex000D
the concentration and size distribution of suspended particulate matters, but provide no information on thex000D
composition of the particles. Particle composition is important in assessing the impacts of the particles andx000D
their source - that is finding ways of reducing the impacts.x000D
Particle composition has been characterized in a number of indoor air quality studies, but not with the spatialx000D
and temporal resolution needed to determine the major sources. Methods to characterize particle compositionx000D
are either extremely costly or very slow. The expertize needed to run the instrumentation, samplers and analysisx000D
is a very large barrier to obtaining the needed measurements.x000D
TZOA is aiming to design an inexpensive, small, and smart conditional particle sampler that can be deployedx000D
in a large quantity. A conditional sampler collects a limited number of samples for characteristic periods ofx000D
wind direction, occupation or system operation. This provides the information needed at low cost. Thex000D
proposed project aims to develop methods for the collection, composition analysis, and source apportionmentx000D
of aerosols collected by this sampler.