Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis

Director: Rudolf Husar

Home Page: http://capita.wustl.edu/CAPITA/ Location: 319 Urbauer

The Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA) in the School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis does air quality-related research, disseminates data, reports, and software and hosts the WWW domains for several organizations. The research at CAPITA is in the areas of atmospheric aerosols, regional air pollution, and environmental informatics.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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Kind of a drag Engineer devises ways to improve gas mileage March 16, 2009 -- Agarwal A mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles — planes, autos and trucks. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle. Working with undergraduate and graduate students, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Ph.D, the William Palm Professor of Engineering at WUSTL, has successfully demonstrated that the drag of airplane wings and cars/trucks can be reduced by employing the active flow control technology.

Cleans up nice Washington University, two industries, team to clean up mercury emissions Jan. 14, 2008 -- Pratim Biswas, Ph.D., chair of WUSTL's energy, environmental and chemical engineering department, heads a project involving Washington University, Chrysler LLC and Ameren Corporation to test a mercury removal process in a full-scale power plant. Washington University in St. Louis is partnering with Chrysler LLC and a major Midwest utility company in a project to determine if paint solid residues from automobile manufacturing can reduce emissions of mercury from electric power plants. The project is based upon the technical expertise of Pratim Biswas, Ph.D., Stifel & Quinette Jens Professor of Environmental Engineering Science who has demonstrated the effectiveness of titanium dioxide in controlling mercury in lab and recent field studies. He heads the project that will test a mercury removal process in a full-scale power plant.

Breaking up is easy to do Cell splits water via sunlight to produce hydrogen, cheap source of energy May 1, 2007 -- David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Pratim Biswas and his group have developed a method to make a variety of oxide semiconductors that, when put into water promote chemical reactions that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Download Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a unique photocatalytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and oxygen in water using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst. The group is developing novel methodologies for synthesis of nanostructured films with superior opto-electronic properties.

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Faculty Experts:

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Rudolf Husar Professor of Mechanical Engineering Husar is the director of Washington University's Center for Air Pollution Impact, Trends and Analysis (CAPITA), the world's largest private library of air pollution literature and computerized statistics. CAPITA spans more than 100 years of American pollution and energy consumption. Using CAPITA data, ... Expertise: air pollution, clean air, aerosols, fluid mechanics, Monte Carlo Modeling, ozone Direct contact: (314) 935-6054 / rhusar@me.wustl.edu

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The Monte Carlo Model: PC Implementation
During the past two years, a previous Monte Carlo model was reimplemented onto the IBM-PC platform. This model was designed in a modular framework, separating the emissions, transport and kinetics calculations. The transport module employs a Monte Carlo technique for the simulation of atmospheric boundary layer physics. Kinetic processes are simulated using first order rate equations where the kinetic rate coefficients vary in space and time. The rate coefficients are determined via a tuning process comparing simulated and actual measurements.

Aerosol Pattern and Trends
A sizable research effort since the 1980s focuses on long-term air pollution trends spanning this century in the United States. This analysis includes state-by-state fuel use trends, sulfur and nitrogen emissions. At the same time, historical data from numerous sources are collected on sulfur and nitrogen deposition and airborne concentration. Visibility trends have also been compiled for North America and Europe. The CAPITA visibility trend analysis work contributed significantly to the deliberations for the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990.

Related reports on the subject:
- Sulfur and Nitrogen Emission Trends Trend of U.S. Visibility
- Tropospheric Aerosols Over the Oceans

Source Receptor Relationship
CAPITA researchers have pursued two complementary approaches to the source receptor relationship. In the receptor approach, the chemical composition of the ambient aerosol to apportion the contributions of different source types was used. In the source-oriented approach, a numerical model is used to simulate the dispersion and chemical reactions of pollutants emitted from specific sources.

Environmental Informatics
The newest research activity at CAPITA on Environmental Informatics is, in a sense, a response to the "information age," "information revolution," and "information glut" in the environmental field.

Recent research includes, development of data structures for the transmission of environmental knowledge (geographic, animation, hypertext); the use and refinement of interactive, graphic data exploration, and analysis techniques (see Software Utilities); and application and demonstration of multimedia data delivery systems (e.g. Voyager, Movie, Hypertext software).