Ultrafine Particles and Fetal Contamination

Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Chihiro Kaito ◽  
Yoshio Saito

The direct evaporation of metallic oxides or sulfides does not always given the same compounds with starting material, i.e. decomposition took place. Since the controll of the sulfur or selenium vapors was difficult, a similar production method for oxide particles could not be used for preparation of such compounds in spite of increasing interest in the fields of material science, astrophysics and mineralogy. In the present paper, copper metal was evaporated from a molybdenum silicide heater which was proposed by us to produce the ultra-fine particles in reactive gas as shown schematically in Figure 1. Typical smoke by this method in Ar gas at a pressure of 13 kPa is shown in Figure 2. Since the temperature at a location of a few mm below the heater, maintained at 1400° C , were a few hundred degrees centigrade, the selenium powder in a quartz boat was evaporated at atmospheric temperature just below the heater. The copper vapor that evaporated from the heater was mixed with the stream of selenium vapor,and selenide was formed near the boat. If then condensed by rapid cooling due to the collision with inert gas, thus forming smoke similar to that from the metallic sulfide formation. Particles were collected and studied by a Hitachi H-800 electron microscope.Figure 3 shows typical EM images of the produced copper selenide particles. The morphology was different by the crystal structure, i.e. round shaped plate (CuSe;hexagona1 a=0.39,C=l.723 nm) ,definite shaped p1 ate(Cu5Se4;Orthorhombic;a=0.8227 , b=1.1982 , c=0.641 nm) and a tetrahedron(Cu1.8Se; cubic a=0.5739 nm). In the case of compound ultrafine particles there have been no observation for the particles of the tetrahedron shape. Since the crystal structure of Cu1.8Se is the anti-f1uorite structure, there has no polarity.


Author(s):  
Jun Liu ◽  
Mehmet Sarikaya ◽  
Ilhan A. Aksay

Ultrafine particles usually have unique physical properties. This study illustrates how the lattice defects and interfacial structures between particles are related to the size of ultrafine crystalline gold particles.Colloidal gold particles were produced by reducing gold chloride with sodium citrate at 100°C. In this process, particle size can be controlled by changing the concentration of the reactant. TEM samples are prepared by transferring a small amount of solution onto a thin (5 nm) carbon film which is suspended on a copper grid. In this work, all experiments were performed with Philips 430T at 300 kV.With controlled seeded growth, particles of different sizes are produced, as shown in Figure 1. By a careful examination, it can be resolved that very small particles have lattice defects with complex interfaces. Some typical particle structures include multiple twins, resulting in a five-fold symmetry bicrystals, and highly disordered regions. Many particles are too complex to be described by simple models.


2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandan Misra ◽  
Philip M. Fine ◽  
Manisha Singh ◽  
Constantinos Sioutas
Keyword(s):  

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 407
Author(s):  
Antonio Donateo ◽  
Adelaide Dinoi ◽  
Gianluca Pappaccogli

In order to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, governments have implemented several restrictive measures (lockdown, stay-in-place, and quarantine policies). These provisions have drastically changed the routines of residents, altering environmental conditions in the affected areas. In this context, our work analyzes the effects of the reduced emissions during the COVID-19 period on the ultrafine particles number concentration and their turbulent fluxes in a suburban area. COVID-19 restrictions did not significantly reduce anthropogenic related PM10 and PM2.5 levels, with an equal decrement of about 14%. The ultrafine particle number concentration during the lockdown period decreased by 64% in our measurement area, essentially due to the lower traffic activity. The effect of the restriction measures and the reduction of vehicles traffic was predominant in reducing concentration rather than meteorological forcing. During the lockdown in 2020, a decrease of 61% in ultrafine particle positive fluxes can be observed. At the same time, negative fluxes decreased by 59% and our observation site behaved, essentially, as a sink of ultrafine particles. Due to this behavior, we can conclude that the principal particle sources during the lockdown were far away from the measurement site.


Author(s):  
Mehrdad Rafiepourgatabi ◽  
Alistair Woodward ◽  
Jennifer A. Salmond ◽  
Kim Natasha Dirks

Children walking to school are at a high risk of exposure to air pollution compared with other modes because of the time they spend in close proximity to traffic during their commute. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a walker’s route choice on their exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP) on the walk to school. During morning commutes over a period of three weeks, exposure to UFP was measured along three routes: two routes were alongside both sides of a busy arterial road with significantly higher levels of traffic on one side compared to the other, and the third route passed through quiet streets (the background route). The results indicate that the mean exposure for the pedestrian walking along the background route was half the exposure experienced on the other two routes. Walkers on the trafficked side were exposed to elevated concentrations (>100,000 pt/cc) 2.5 times longer than the low-trafficked side. However, the duration of the elevated exposure for the background route was close to zero. Public health officials and urban planners may use the results of this study to promote healthier walking routes to schools, especially those planned as part of organized commutes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kundi Yang ◽  
Mengyang Xu ◽  
Jingyi Cao ◽  
Qi Zhu ◽  
Monica Rahman ◽  
...  

AbstractEmerging evidence has highlighted the connection between exposure to air pollution and the increased risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and comorbidities. Given the recent interest in studying the effects of ultrafine particle (UFP) on the health of obese individuals, this study examined the effects of gastrointestinal UFP exposure on gut microbial composition and metabolic function using an in vivo murine model of obesity in both sexes. UFPs generated from light-duty diesel engine combustion of petrodiesel (B0) and a petrodiesel/biodiesel fuel blend (80:20 v/v, B20) were administered orally. Multi-omics approaches, including liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) based targeted metabolomics and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, semi-quantitatively compared the effects of 10-day UFP exposures on obese C57B6 mouse gut microbial population, changes in diversity and community function compared to a phosphate buffer solution (PBS) control group. Our results show that sex-specific differences in the gut microbial population in response to UFP exposure can be observed, as UFPs appear to have a differential impact on several bacterial families in males and females. Meanwhile, the alteration of seventy-five metabolites from the gut microbial metabolome varied significantly (ANOVA p < 0.05) across the PBS control, B0, and B20 groups. Multivariate analyses revealed that the fuel-type specific disruption to the microbial metabolome was observed in both sexes, with stronger disruptive effects found in females in comparison to male obese mice. Metabolic signatures of bacterial cellular oxidative stress, such as the decreased concentration of nucleotides and lipids and increased concentrations of carbohydrate, energy, and vitamin metabolites were detected. Furthermore, blood metabolites from the obese mice were differentially affected by the fuel types used to generate the UFPs (B0 vs. B20).


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