GAAW is a sustained international initiative dedicated to preventing asbestos exposure, advancing evidence-based policy, and protecting public health. Now in its 22nd year, GAAW convenes scientists, public health professionals, labor leaders, policymakers, advocates, and individuals impacted by asbestos-related diseases from around the world to share knowledge, document risk, and drive prevention-focused action.

Asbestos is a known human carcinogen with no safe level of exposure. Despite persistent misconceptions that asbestos is a problem of the past, it remains both legal and lethal in the United States, and exposure continues to pose a serious public health threat. Asbestos remains in homes, schools, workplaces, consumer products, and contaminated sites, placing workers, families, and communities at ongoing risk.

“The mismanagement of asbestos is down to lack of surveys, lack of understanding, and lack of identification of asbestos,” said Stephen Booth, managing director. “Many people think most asbestos is just found in pipe lagging, but actually it can be in adhesive, floor tiles, and Artex ceilings to name a few, plus in the wider world it has been found in science equipment in schools and talcum powder. We need people to have a greater understanding of asbestos and where you might find it.”

Although banned in more than 70 countries, asbestos remains legal and lethal in the U.S. Each year,ĚýĚýfrom asbestos-related diseases, while more than 200,000 people worldwide die from illnesses linked to asbestos exposure.

“More than two decades after we launchedĚýGlobal Asbestos Awareness Week, the message remains clear. Asbestos exposure is preventable, and prevention saves lives,” saidĚýLinda Reinstein, president and CEO of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) and co-founder of the international campaign. “By sharing trusted science, elevating the voices of those affected, and advancing policy solutions such as the , we can protect workers, families, and future generations from this entirely preventable disease.”

Throughout the week, ADAO, the , the British Occupational Hygiene Society, and others will share educational resources, expert insights, and personal stories from individuals whose lives have been forever changed by asbestos exposure.

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Furthermore, good ventilation and exhaust systems in kitchen and restrooms help protect asthma sufferers from attacks, researchers found.

With air conditioning constant across much of Texas during warmer months, this reduces natural ventilation and may increase indoor pollutant levels, researchers found. Additionally, many older homes, mobile homes, and multi-unit residences face the challenges of excess moisture and pests.

The study found that Texans were more likely to have asthma attacks, frequent symptoms, and trouble sleeping or staying active if they didn’t use air purifiers or if they smoked cigarettes. Texans living in homes without mold, furry pets, mice, and rats had fewer asthma problems, the study reported.

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“In 2024, Illinois fire departments responded to 9,860 carbon monoxide-related calls across our state,” said Illinois State Fire Marshal Michele Pankow. “These numbers serve as a powerful reminder that carbon monoxide remains a serious and potentially deadly threat in our homes. The good news is that prevention is simple, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms save lives. Regularly testing your alarms, checking expiration dates, and replacing units that are broken or outdated is your strongest line of defense against accidental carbon monoxide poisoning or worse.”

Among the key findings in the report:

• Over the five years of the study, carbon monoxide exposures resulted in an average of 940 emergency department (ED) visits, 126 hospital admissions, and nearly 57 deaths annually in Illinois.
• While unintentional CO exposures are most common during cold weather months from October to March, they can and do happen at any time of the year.
• Among the most common sources of unintentional carbon monoxide exposures are fire and smoke; malfunctioning or improperly ventilated furnaces, gas stoves, water heaters, or other appliances; exhaust from vehicles running in garages or other enclosed spaces; generators operating indoors without proper ventilation or operating outdoors too close to open windows; and gas-powered tools like saws or power washers being operated indoors or in unventilated spaces.
• Fire departments responded to more than 50,000 total carbon monoxide incidents statewide in the five-year period, with 95% of them occurring in residential settings. Commercial and business locations accounted for 2.4% of total reports, followed by public/government locations, healthcare and assisted living facilities, and institutional/educational locations.
• CO incidents were more likely to occur on Sunday than any other day of the week, and more likely to happen in the evening hours (6 p.m. to midnight). Both findings reflect times when people were more likely to be home and using furnaces, appliances, or other potential sources of carbon monoxide.
• In 81% of all incidents, no data was provided on whether a working carbon monoxide detector was in place at the site of the exposure. Of the remaining 19% of incident reports, 6% indicated that residents were alerted to the issue by a working CO detector; 1% indicated that no working detector was in place; and 12% said the CO detector status was “unknown.” The report said this shows the need for more consistent and complete reporting practices.

IDPH will use the report to support a number of initiatives aimed at improving awareness and prevention of carbon monoxide exposures.

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The Safety Champions Program encourages businesses to take proactive steps with a philosophy of continuous improvement to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. The program has three progressive steps—introductory, intermediate, and advanced—each aligned with OSHA’s recommended practices for safety and health programs. This tiered structure allows employers to build their safety and health programs over time and adopt best practices tailored to their needs and operations.

Participants can choose to work independently or collaborate with Special Government Employees—individuals with safety and health experience who work alongside OSHA to provide guidance and technical assistance.

The Safety Champions Program emphasizes seven elements that are essential for effective safety and health programs: management leadership, worker participation, hazard identification, prevention and control, education and training, program evaluation, and communication. By incorporating these elements, OSHA said employers can create safety and health programs that not only meet regulations but also enhance workplace safety and health.

Upon completion of all three levels of the Safety Champions Program, participants are expected to have implemented all seven elements and showed plans for continuous improvement of their safety and health programs, thus demonstrating their commitment to maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.

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Hoffman, who has spent decades working in air purification and indoor environmental quality, opened a recent roundtable discussion aboard the Carnival Horizon, the venue of a Restoration Journeys and NORMI Caribbean cruise, by pointing out a frustration shared by a growing number of medical professionals: the gap between clinical study results and real-world performance.

“Clinical studies will tell you one thing about how something might work in a specific setting, like an air purifier in an eight-by-eight box,” Hoffman said. “But that doesn’t tell you anything about how it will work in the actual environment in somebody’s house.”

He illustrated the point with a common scenario: Put an air purifier in a sealed clear box, remove all contaminants, introduce only formaldehyde, and measure what happens. The results look impressive. But as Hoffman pointed out, no one lives in a room with only formaldehyde.

“Who has ever been in a house that has just formaldehyde?” he said. “Nobody.”

That distinction between controlled clinical testing and real-world field studies is at the heart of what Hoffman said a medical board he works with is now focusing on—evaluating whether technologies work based on case studies and field results rather than laboratory conditions alone.

One of those proven technologies, he said, is the chemical-free, fogless sanitization process his company uses. He used the training session to explain the science behind it, starting from the ground up.

Only five technologies

Despite the sprawling variety of air purifiers on the market, Hoffman said every single one of them uses some combination of just five technologies: filters, ionizers, ozone generators, ultraviolet light, and ultraviolet light with a target plate—the last of which is known as photocatalytic oxidation, or PCO.

“If you know what those five technologies are, it doesn’t matter what the air purifier is,” he said. “You know exactly what it does. You know the pros and cons.”

He demonstrated the point with a quick example: If someone brings him a new air purifier he’s never seen, he just asks what it does. If it has a needlepoint ionizer and a filter, he said, he knows exactly what it does, no brochure required.

The deeper organizing principle behind those five technologies, Hoffman said, is the distinction between passive and active approaches.

Passive technologies, primarily filters, work by pulling contaminants toward the solution. You must get the pollution to the filter. If air doesn’t reach it, it doesn’t get cleaned. Active technologies, like ozone, do the opposite. They push the solution out to the pollution.

“If I’m bringing the pollution to the solution, am I standing in the solution or the pollution?” Hoffman asked. “I’m standing in the pollution. But if I’m proactively taking the solution to the pollution, now I’m standing in the solution.”

That framing, which he said clicked for a room full of industrial hygienists he once briefed on an oil rig in Houston, drives his approach to every job. Effective air quality work, he said, always includes both.

The problem with filters

Filters are a good starting point, Hoffman said, but they come with real limitations. The first is simply the challenge of getting contaminants to them. In most homes, there’s a single return for the HVAC system, typically in a hallway, and moving all the air in a house to that one point takes enormous force.

ASHRAE research has found that only about 26% of the air in any given environment reaches the filter. The rest circulates without ever getting cleaned.

“You think about the filter on your air conditioner,” he said. “You turn your air conditioning system off. It’s not filtering the air.”

Even when air reaches a filter, the filter only captures particles larger than a certain size. HEPA filters, which are marketed as trapping 99.9% of contaminants, capture 99.9% of particles above 0.3 microns of the air that reaches them. Smaller particles pass through until enough buildup narrows the gaps.

Brownian motion also plays a role in how HEPA filters capture very small particles. It is not a type of filter but a scientific principle that helps explain why tiny particles can be trapped in the filter media. In fact, four different processes work together inside a HEPA filter to capture contaminants, and Brownian motion is one of them. As particles move randomly and collide with air molecules, they are more likely to drift into the filter fibers and become trapped. Ironically, as a filter loads with particles, its efficiency can increase—but that improvement also restricts airflow and can strain the motor. For that reason, filters should be replaced before they become overly loaded, even though doing so may seem counterintuitive.

The best solution, he said, is to combine filtration with proactive distribution, using ducted airflow to move all the air actively and constantly through the environment rather than waiting for contaminants to drift toward a single return.

Ionization: clumping the invisible

The second technology, ionization, works by electrically charging the particles in the air so they aggregate, clumping together until they’re either heavy enough to drop out of the breathing zone or large enough to get captured by a filter.

The most effective form for immediate ionization, Hoffman said, is needlepoint ionization, a highly charged element that sends a negative charge across passing air, reversing the polarity of positively charged particles so they attract each other and aggregate.

“Instead of dealing with 0.3-micron or smaller submicron particles, those particles are getting bigger—2.0, 2.5,” he said. “As you continuously produce ionization, even at lower levels, the larger those particles get.”

Combined with filtration, he said, ionization creates a significant double effect: particles that would have slipped through a filter on their own are now large enough to get caught. Add ozone to that mix, a third technology, and you’ve got a system that doesn’t just capture airborne contaminants but actively destroys bacteria and mold before they reach the filter at all.

“Air quality issues are multifaceted, so you need a multi-strategic solution,” Hoffman said. “By adding three technologies, now you’ve got something multi-strategic.”

Ozone: powerful but scalable

Ozone has a complicated reputation, and Hoffman addressed it directly.

The EPA’s current limit for ozone is 0.05 parts per million. OSHA’s threshold is 0.10. Humans typically start smelling ozone at around 0.02 parts per million, and, as Hoffman noted, the beach smell most people find pleasant and clean usually falls somewhere between 0.10 and 0.15.

“Some say ozone will kill you,” he said. “The reality is the length of time you’re exposed to it and your personal sensitivity to it are bigger problems than the actual level.”

Chemically, ozone (O3) is an unstable molecule. When it encounters other compounds like formaldehyde, it donates its extra oxygen atom, altering the target molecule’s structure. With enough exposure, it oxidizes the contaminant and breaks it down into basic components. With pathogens, the mechanism is different but equally effective: Ozone disrupts the RNA and DNA of bacteria and mold, stopping reproduction.

Hoffman described swab testing that demonstrates the effect: Swab a surface, send it to a lab, document what’s growing, then run ozone in the room for 12 to 24 hours, and swab the same area again. After treatment, nothing grows.

“It’s pretty amazing what ozone can do and how powerful it can be,” he said. “It’s just that too much of it, uncontrolled, is the problem.”

The solution is scalability. The small corona discharge ozone generator he demonstrated, rated for up to about 900 square feet, has a dial that lets users adjust output. The goal is maintaining a level that’s actively working on surfaces and air without reaching concentrations that become problematic for occupants.

UV and the catalytic leap

Ultraviolet light at wavelengths between 184 and 256 nanometers is germicidal—it destroys bacteria, viruses, and mold. But UV on its own, Hoffman said, has a significant limitation: Its effective kill range extends only a couple of inches from the lamp, and microbes must be exposed to it long enough for it to do damage.

“At 2,000 CFMs in an HVAC system, the bugs hardly get a sunburn,” he said. “It just can’t be there long enough to be destroyed.”

In practice, he said, UV lights installed in HVAC systems work well on the surfaces immediately surrounding the lamp, particularly on the A-coil, but leave everything else largely untouched. He described inspecting systems and seeing clean strips where lamps were positioned with contamination in between.

The breakthrough came from combining UV with a target plate. The technology traces back to Beijing, where researchers discovered that titanium dioxide painted on the sides of buildings was reacting with sunlight to keep the surrounding sidewalks clean.

That observation led to what is now called PCO technology: a UV lamp positioned close to a plate coated with titanium dioxide, creating a catalytic reaction that produces oxidizers—not ozone. These reactive compounds travel downstream into the environment and proactively address bacteria and mold.

Modern versions of the technology use a honeycomb plate rather than a flat plate, maximizing surface area to produce more oxidizers, with multiple metallic coatings, reflector plates, and other refinements. Hoffman noted that his company’s current PCO units use a quad-metallic coating, LED instead of traditional UV lamps to avoid the roughly 10,000-hour lifespan limitation of UV bulbs, and what he called dielectric barrier ionization rather than needlepoint.

Multi-cluster ionization: the South Korea connection

That last technology—dielectric barrier ionization—came from a trip Hoffman made to South Korea years ago to deliver indoor air quality training. While he was there, the company that had brought him over revealed the real purpose of the visit: They had developed a new ionization technology and wanted to find a U.S. partner.

Unlike needlepoint ionization, which produces single negative ions that discharge and stop working once they’ve interacted with something, the dielectric barrier ionizer produces a clustered positive-and-negative ion pair. Those clusters, Hoffman said, continue working after each interaction—spinning out, hitting the next surface, then the next—remaining active in the environment for a much longer time.

“Instead of that ion going out and hitting something and being done, this clustered ion goes out, hits something, and then keeps going,” he said.

His company was given the rights to the technology for the U.S. and Canada and trademarked it as multi-cluster ionization. Combining it with the PCO probe—UV or LED light, honeycomb target plate, and dielectric barrier ionizer—produced a unit that incorporates four of the five air purification technologies in a single device.

The technology first found commercial traction in South Korean casinos, where smoking remains common. Hoffman said you can walk into one of those casinos and not smell anything.

Chemical-free fogging: closing the loop

All that context, the five technologies, passive versus active, surface testing versus air testing, was Hoffman’s foundation for explaining what he called chemical-free fogging.

The process uses these PCO and ionization technologies without any chemical agents. Instead of introducing a disinfectant into the environment, the equipment sends oxidizers throughout the space, addressing surfaces and air simultaneously.

At least 85% of the testing done on these technologies, Hoffman said, has been conducted on surfaces rather than air, simply because surface results are easier to quantify. But the logic holds. If the technology demonstrably cleans surfaces, it’s also working on the air in between.

In practice, Hoffman said chemical-free fogging is built into both sanitization and remediation protocols. During a remediation project, it runs inside containment throughout the cleaning process. After containment comes down, the entire structure gets treated.

That last step, he said, is one the industry often skips, and shouldn’t.

“If I had a two-story house and my second floor was under containment for a remediation project, and I was living on the first floor, when the job is done and they break down containment, I’ve now contaminated the second floor, because it’s a whole lot cleaner than where I was living,” he said. “Once a remediation project is done, the entire house needs to be sanitized.”

The approach has been particularly successful with chemically sensitive individuals, those who can’t tolerate conventional disinfectants, he said. Because the process uses no chemicals, those clients can return home without the reactions that typically follow treatment.

That success, along with the field and case study data Hoffman’s company has compiled, drew the medical board’s interest he mentioned at the start of the session. They’ve recognized the difference between laboratory results and real-world outcomes, and they’re starting to evaluate technologies the same way Hoffman has for years.

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“Mold exposure is still not well recognized within conventional medicine,” Heyman said. “The way mold exposure is seen within the medical system is still largely based on the 2004 recommendations that it is either an allergic response or, at worst, a pulmonary issue. The world has moved on.”

An evolving understanding of mold-related illness

Heyman explained that research over the past two decades has expanded the understanding of mold-related illness well beyond allergies. Clinical evidence now shows that microbial exposure can trigger complex inflammatory responses with wide-ranging effects on multiple body systems. In some individuals, those responses are severe.

“When you realize the degree to which people can be affected by these exposures, and how lives can be truly harmed as a result, you have to look at the environments in which people live,” Heyman explained. “You cannot understand these patients outside of that context.”

That realization reshaped his view of remediation professionals. Rather than seeing remediators as ancillary service providers, Heyman described them as part of the patient’s front line of care. “I now think the remediator is part of the primary care team for that patient,” Heyman acknowledged. “They are not just an ancillary professional. They are going to see things other people do not, and they will often interact with that client far more than I ever would.”

Integrating clinical insight into remediation practices

This perspective directly influenced the development of NORMI’s LEVEL 4 Protocol for Assessment and Remediation. Heyman said the protocol was designed for cases involving medically sensitive individuals who do not respond to conventional remediation approaches.

“There are people who are genetically predisposed to become very sick from these exposures,” Heyman noted. “For those individuals, the techniques applied to the home need to be elevated and more aggressive. The role of the remediator becomes central, and it is a role that needs to be taken seriously because it is about a person’s health in deep and meaningful ways.”

The LEVEL 4 protocol integrates remediation practices with clinical insight, acknowledging that environmental intervention and medical treatment must work together. Heyman expressed that this collaboration emerged from years of observing better patient outcomes when investigators, remediators, and clinicians communicated effectively. “My best clinical outcomes were always when I worked closely with investigators and remediators,” Heyman added. “I had to learn to speak their language, and they have to learn to speak mine.”

That need for shared understanding was a key reason NORMI established its Medical Advisory Board. Heyman said the timing reflected advances on both sides of the equation. “We are now much better able to measure the impact of the home on its inhabitants clinically,” Heyman said. “We are also better at treating them. But no amount of treatment will work if the home is not dealt with properly.”

The board’s role is to ensure that medical science aligns with remediation standards, training, and competencies. Heyman emphasized that standardization is critical. “It is no good if you have 20 remediators doing 20 different things,” he said. “If outcomes are going to be reliable and understandable, professionals need to be moving in the same direction.”

Closing the gap between medical recognition and environmental reality

From Heyman’s perspective, one of the most significant gaps in the industry is not remediation itself but medicine’s failure to fully recognize and validate mold-related illnesses.

“We have not taken the health impact of a contaminated home seriously,” Heyman stated. “Where medicine has fallen short is believing patients and having reliable measurement tools to demonstrate that they are objectively sick and that the home is the cause.”

He noted that new biomarkers and diagnostic tools are beginning to close that gap. These advances challenge traditional toxicology models that assume higher exposure equals greater harm.

“The immunologic model shows that even minute amounts of exposure can lead to enormous inflammatory responses,” Heyman reported. “You can have someone with relatively low measured mold levels who is profoundly ill. That does not fit the old model, but it fits the new science.”

This shift has significant implications for high-risk environments, including schools, healthcare facilities, military housing, and athletic facilities. Heyman cited repeated clinical patterns where environmental exposure contributes to neurological inflammation, cognitive impairment, and behavioral changes.

“I see children labeled with learning disabilities when it is actually the environment affecting them,” he said. “These are critical populations that deserve a level of attention and care they are not currently getting.”

Looking ahead, Heyman expects rapid acceleration in the field, driven by advances in molecular biology, genomics, and immunology. He believes these tools will reshape how practitioners understand individual susceptibility and response to environmental exposure.

Ultimately, he commented, success will be measured by outcomes, not theory. “We will be able to answer two questions: What did we do for the home, and what did we do for the people living in the home,” Heyman said. “That will elevate the role of the remediator, elevate the role of the practitioner, and finally put the patient at the center.”

For Heyman, the stakes extend beyond industry improvement. “There are millions of people affected by their homes,” he reported. “If we get this right, it may be one of the most important advances in modern medicine.”

To learn more about NORMI’s efforts to bridge the built environment to the healthcare industry with NORMI’s Level 4, medically directed protocol, visit . For any who feel they may have health issues with mold or other indoor air quality concerns, follow the prompts on that page.

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BREATHE aims to advance the next generation of smart and healthy buildings by developing integrated systems that provide continuous measurement and risk assessment of indoor air quality (IAQ) and deploy real-time interventions, such as enhanced ventilation or disinfection, to mitigate airborne threats to human health.

Poor IAQ exacerbates chronic diseases, such as asthma and allergies, and is a leading cause of preventable respiratory illnesses, including the flu. Rather than only treating illness after it occurs, BREATHE aims to create healthier indoor environments that prevent disease, improve productivity, and enhance quality of life for everyone.

“BREATHE will revolutionize public health by greatly advancing our ability to detect and address indoor air quality threats like never before,” saidĚý, ARPA-H acting director.Ěý“ARPA-H’s investment has the potential to bring about the next generation of smart buildings, making sure indoor air is always clean and healthy.”

The agency’s initial total commitment to these teams is up to US$156 million during the next five years.Ěý Ěý(not procurement contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements) vary in funding amount per awardee and are contingent upon each team meeting aggressive and accelerated milestones.

“Today, most buildings can’t see what’s in their air, allowing harmful allergens and pathogens to circulate unnoticed,” saidĚýBREATHEĚý.Ěý“BREATHE innovators are closing the gap, so buildings actively protect occupants instead of amplifying risk.”

BREATHE’s teams are led by:

• Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, which is developing a biosensor based on microfluidic droplet CRISPR technology. The team will apply cutting-edge technologies, such as agent-based models and digital twin models, to assess the risk of people contracting illnesses indoors. The team will demonstrate its technology in emergency departments at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida.
• Poppy Health Inc.,ĚýWinter Park, Florida, which is developing an amplification-free genetic sensor that sends a tiny electrical signal when it detects a target microbe in the air, allowing buildings to respond accordingly.Ěý The team will demonstrate their technology in 60 U.S. schools to protect children and staff from getting sick indoors.
• SafeTraces Inc.,ĚýPleasanton, California, which is developing a novel microarray qPCR biosensor that utilizes a unique positional printing method to detect a broad spectrum of microbes. The team will develop software that triggers a new operating mode for buildings when risk levels are high, including deploying their technology in Defense Health Administration Medical Centers to protect vulnerable patients from airborne illnesses.
• Virginia Tech,ĚýBlacksburg, Virginia, which is developing a new biosensor that enables real-time, ultrasensitive detection of specific pathogens and allergens using nanobody-based technology. The project will also deliver software that translates data from the biosensor, building, community, and environment into respiratory risk, as well as tools to optimize proven interventions that reduce bioaerosol concentrations and maintain healthy conditions.ĚýThe team will demonstrate their technology across multiple daycare centers.

For more information on BREATHE, visit theĚý.

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H.B. 212 will institute the gradual phasing out of intentionally added PFAS in everyday items. Lawmakers also passed a second bill,Ěý, to allow the New Mexico Environment Department to regulate and manage cleanup for firefighting foams containing PFAS on military bases, which have caused contamination in groundwater statewide.

The , establish a process for companies to receive an exemption if needed, and develop fines for companies violating the ban.

New Mexico is the third state to push legislation around the use of PFAS in consumer products, joining Maine and Minnesota. This class of manmade chemicals is , oil, and sunlight. As a result, PFAS can be found across a range of products, including cleaning supplies, menstrual products, textiles, and upholstered furniture.

But exposure through contaminated water and soil, as well as through plants and animals, causes PFAS to build up in the human body. While still being studied, PFAS exposure is linked to increasedĚý,,,,ĚýandĚýlimiting vaccine effectiveness.

Once approved, New Mexico’s PFAS ban would roll out in phases, starting with cookware, food packaging, firefighting foams, dental floss, and juvenile products by January 2027. Additional items would follow, such as cosmetics, period hygiene products, textiles, carpeting, furniture, and ski wax. Exceptions to the ban include medical devices, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and cars.

Meanwhile, provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate annual Defense authorization bills reduce restrictions on the PFAS. In the House, one such provision is generating pushback.

Additionally, with the Environmental Protection Agency planning to rescind national standards for PFAS in drinking water, the called on the federal government to fund cleanup and remediation. Since 2023, 26 states have adopted over 100 policies relating to PFAS and PFAS contamination, according to NCSL.

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Air quality sensors typically use MXene, a class of compounds that is good at storing energy and sensing gases. But the compound is highly susceptible to oxidation, particularly when exposed to air and/or humidity, which poses a major challenge for MXene-based air quality monitors.

Researchers were able to lengthen the lifespan of the air quality sensor by using a unique polymer coating that extends the sensor’s half-life by more than 200% and enables it to regenerate when its performance begins to degrade.

CMU researchers, led byĚýProfessor of Mechanical Engineering Reeja Jayan, used a technique that vaporizes specific materials, causing them to form a nano-coating on the cold sensor in a way similar to condensation coating the outside of an ice-cold drinking glass on a hot day.

Without the coating, the MXene sensor lasted for a little over two months. But when the polymer layer was applied, the sensor ran for more than five months.ĚýShwetha Sunil Kumar, a Ph.D. candidate inĚýmechanical engineering, said the coating also made the sensors better at detecting formaldehyde.

The team further found that by adding humidity to the sensor at the end of its life, it regained about 90% of its sensing ability.

Jayan is confident that these materials could be deployed to other devices to enhance lifetime and performance. She is currently developingĚýĚýto extend the life and safety of batteries.

The post Researchers Improve IAQ With Upgrades to Sensors That Detect Formaldehyde appeared first on Cleanfax.

Researchers in Barcelona studied data collected from 2018 to 2021 from 754 mother-fetus pairs. Participants underwent transvaginal neurosonography, a specialized ultrasound that allows the analysis of fetal brain shape and structures, during the third trimester of pregnancy.

Higher prenatal exposure to nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and black carbon in pregnant women’s homes, workplaces, and commuting routes was linked with increased brain regions that contain cerebrospinal fluid, a liquid that plays a role in nutrient delivery and waste removal.

Researchers said higher exposure to black carbon was also associated with decreased depth of a groove in the brain called the lateral sulcus, which they believe might suggest less brain maturation.

However, researchers said all brain structures’ measurements stayed within the range considered normal.

The scientists added that more research is needed to determine whether these effects are reversible after birth or if they persist, and whether they have any implications for neurodevelopmental outcomes in later stages.

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