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A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental and Green Processes".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2023) | Viewed by 18170

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Daniele Sofia

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Guest Editor

Department of Computer Engineering, Modeling, Electronics and Systems, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci Cubo 44/a, 87036 Rende, CS, Italy
Interests: additive manufacturing; particle technology; air quality; laser sintering; powder technology; selective laser sintering; IoT development; nanomaterials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Paolo Trucillo

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Guest Editor

Foamlab, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, dei Materiali e della Produzione Industriale, University of Naples Federico II, P.le V. Tecchio, 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy
Interests: drug delivery systems; foams; material science; pharmaceutical material science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental pollution is one of the most relevant and discussed problems of modern times. in particular, air pollution has a great impact on the life of the planet, and air quality monitoring is a key aspect for reducing air-associated health diseases. One of the main themes of this issue is that of dealing with gaseous compounds leaving industrial production plants, which is often an expensive operation, due to the strict laws that governments have imposed.

Today, the importance of air quality is a topic in which it is extremely important to invest in terms of research activities. Indoor and outdoor quality monitoring systems are well accepted for contribution in this Special issue, together with critical reviews describing the problems in terms of pollution and their link with human health prevention. The topics of this Special Issue will include, for example:

Treatment of gaseous waste from industry;
Development of conventional and novel equipment for the monitoring of the main air quality parameters;
Critical analysis of the outdoor air quality, industrial, motor vehicle and incinerator emissions, economic analysis;
Indoor air quality in a working environment, in case of poor ventilation;
Health impact of air pollution.

This issue is also open to health scientists proposing their studies on the effect of air pollutants on patient health, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

Dr. Daniele Sofia
Dr. Paolo Trucillo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Air quality monitoring
Detection of gaseous pollutants
Novel pollutant tracking systems
Sulfur dioxide
Carbon monoxide and dioxide
Nitrogen monoxide and dioxide
Diseases caused by air pollutants
Smart cities

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Published Papers (13 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

2 pages, 180 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Editorial Overview of the Special Issue “Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications”

by Daniele Sofia and Paolo Trucillo

Processes 2023, 11(8), 2458; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11082458 - 15 Aug 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 909

Abstract

The Special Issue entitled “Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications” addresses the pressing concern of environmental pollution, particularly air pollution, and its impact on global well-being [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

15 pages, 12605 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Calibration of Sensor Network for Outdoor Measurement of PM2.5 on High Wood-Heating Smoke in Temuco City

by Carlos Muñoz, Juan Huircan, Francisco Jaramillo and Álex Boso

Processes 2023, 11(8), 2338; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11082338 - 3 Aug 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1211

Abstract

In order to ascertain the spatial and temporal changes in the air quality in Temuco City, Chile, we created and installed a network of inexpensive sensors to detect PM2.5 particulate matter. The 21 measurement points deployed were based on a low-cost Sensiron SPS30 sensor, complemented with temperature and humidity sensors, an Esp32 microcontroller card with LoRa and WiFi wireless communication interface, and a solar charging unit. The units were calibrated using an airtight combustion chamber with a Grimm 11-E as a reference unit. The calibration procedure fits the parameters of a calibration model to map the raw low-cost particle-material measurements into reliable calibrated values. The measurements showed that the concentrations of fine particulate material recorded in Temuco present a high temporal and spatial variability. In critical contamination episodes, pollution reaches values as high as 354 µg/m

^{3}

, and at the same time, it reaches 50 µg/m

^{3}

in other parts of the city. The contamination episodes show a similar trend around the city, and the peaks are in the time interval from 07:00 PM to 1:00 AM. In the winter, this time of day coincides with when families are usually home and there are low temperatures outside. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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13 pages, 2590 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Examining Current Research Trends in Ozone Formation Sensitivity: A Bibliometric Analysis

by Zeeshan Javed, Khalid Mehmood, Cheng Liu, Xiaojun Zheng, Chunsheng Xu, Aimon Tanvir, Muhammad Ajmal Khan, Nadeem Siddique and Daolin Du

Processes 2023, 11(8), 2240; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11082240 - 26 Jul 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1567

Abstract

The end of the 20th century brought about drastic changes in the tropospheric ozone (O₃) around the globe. It is, therefore, highly important to gain insight into O₃ formation mechanisms and their key precursors in order to assist policymaking to combat O₃ pollution. This article synthesizes a bibliometric analysis of O₃ formation sensitivity from 1965 to 2022, reported in English language journals available in the Web of Science Core Collection. This study shows that constant expansion in the number of publications has occurred since 2008, with the highest number occurring in 2021. Most publications are from the United States of America (USA), with 406 papers (42.7%), followed by China with 128 papers (13.5%), and the United Kingdom (UK) with 87 papers (9.1%). Citation burst analysis and significant and highly cited research work analysis are used to discover and assess evolving research tendencies. The thematic evolution of author-supplied keywords indicates that the terms “volatile organic compounds” and “ozone precursors” have recently emerged with a higher frequency. This suggests that there is a growing trend in research focused on these topics in the future. The objective of this study is to provide research primacies and future prospects for better analysis of O₃ sensitivity, thereby helping to manage O₃ pollution. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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21 pages, 8367 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design and Implementation of a Crowdsensing-Based Air Quality Monitoring Open and FAIR Data Infrastructure

by Paolo Diviacco, Massimiliano Iurcev, Rodrigo José Carbajales, Alberto Viola and Nikolas Potleca

Processes 2023, 11(7), 1881; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11071881 - 23 Jun 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1119

Abstract

This work reports on the development of a real-time vehicle sensor network (VSN) system and infrastructure devised to monitor particulate matter (PM) in urban areas within a participatory paradigm. The approach is based on the use of multiple vehicles where sensors, acquisition and transmission devices are installed. PM values are measured and transmitted using standard mobile phone networks. Given the large number of acquisition platforms needed in crowdsensing, sensors need to be low-cost (LCS). This sets limitations in the precision and accuracy of measurements that can be mitigated using statistical methods on redundant data. Once data are received, they are automatically quality controlled, processed and mapped geographically to produce easy-to-understand visualizations that are made available in almost real time through a dedicated web portal. There, end users can access current and historic data and data products. The system has been operational since 2021 and has collected over 50 billion measurements, highlighting several hotspots and trends of air pollution in the city of Trieste (north-east Italy). The study concludes that (i) this perspective allows for drastically reduced costs and considerably improves the coverage of measurements; (ii) for an urban area of approximately 100,000 square meters and 200,000 inhabitants, a large quantity of measurements can be obtained with a relatively low number (5) of public buses; (iii) a small number of private cars, although less easy to organize, can be very important to provide infills in areas where buses are not available; (iv) appropriate corrections for LCS limitations in accuracy can be calculated and applied using reference measurements taken with high-quality standardized devices and methods; and that (v) analyzing the dispersion of measurements in the designated area, it is possible to highlight trends of air pollution and possibly associate them with traffic directions. Crowdsensing and open access to air quality data can provide very useful data to the scientific community but also have great potential in fostering environmental awareness and the adoption of correct practices by the general public. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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12 pages, 3568 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Monitoring PM_2.5 at a Large Shopping Mall: A Case Study in Macao

by Thomas M. T. Lei, Yan W. I. Chan and Mohd Shahrul Mohd Nadzir

Processes 2023, 11(3), 914; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11030914 - 17 Mar 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1862

Abstract

Employees work long hours in an environment where the ambient air quality is poor, directly affecting their work efficiency. The concentration of particulate matters (PM) produced by the interior renovation of shopping malls has not received particular attention in Macao. Therefore, this study will investigate the indoor air quality (IAQ), in particular of PM_2.5, in large-scale shopping mall renovation projects. This study collected on-site PM data with low-cost portable monitoring equipment placed temporarily at specific locations to examine whether the current control measures are appropriate and propose some improvements. Prior to this study, there were no measures being implemented, and on-site monitoring to assess the levels of PM_2.5 concentrations was non-existent. The results show the highest level of PM_2.5 recorded in this study was 559.00 μg/m³. Moreover, this study may provide a reference for decision-makers, management, construction teams, design consultant teams, and renovation teams of large-scale projects. In addition, the monitoring of IAQ can ensure a comfortable environment for employees and customers. This study concluded that the levels of PM_2.5 concentration have no correlation with the number of on-site workers, but rather were largely influenced by the processes being performed on-site. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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28 pages, 4861 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

An Empirical Analysis of the Aircraft Emissions by Operating from Scheduled Flights within the Domestic Market in Spain

by Antonio Martínez Raya, Alejandro Segura de la Cal and Rafael Eugenio González Díaz

Processes 2023, 11(3), 741; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11030741 - 2 Mar 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2852

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, civil aviation has substantially reduced its environmental impact to augment sustainable transportation. In Spain, the domestic market has been habitually characterized by a few enterprises providing air transport services linked to scheduled flights on domestic corridors. Because of geographic diversity and the highly concentrated population characterizing this southern European country, many of them could not be supplied by alternative transport modes in terms of both time and distance by comparison with air transportation. For air quality monitoring from 139 national corridors, this paper aims to study related aviation emissions to conduct an economic analysis in terms of positive or negative externalities. For such purposes, the study focused on these domestic routes served by the five most important Spanish airports, specifically on the number of passengers transported from 2011 to 2020. Up to 10 aircraft types representing no more than 89% of regular operations on these flyways were subsequently identified. In addition, certain engine types also were selected as representatives to evaluate their emissions, depending on the great-circle distance in each route. The research findings, though particularly conditioned by aviation peculiarities of such a domestic market, point decisively to significant dependence upon emissions in connection with the seasonality of the demand and the concentration of flights with low occupancy indices from any one of them. Results suggest that airlines would benefit from operating turboprops instead of turbojets on selected routes, especially when oil prices are high. However, it is not always easy to find a balance between uncompromising economic profitability and effective fleet availability, since nowadays air transport undertakings tend to unify their fleets by using a few aircraft families, mostly powered by jet engines, apart from regional carriers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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14 pages, 5264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) Lockdown Restrictions on the Criteria Pollutants

by Puneet Verma, Sohil Sisodiya, Sachin Kumar Banait, Subhankar Chowdhury, Gaurav Dwivedi and Ali Zare

Processes 2023, 11(1), 296; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11010296 - 16 Jan 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1800

Abstract

Air pollution is accountable for various long-term and short-term respiratory diseases and even deaths. Air pollution is normally associated with a decreasing life expectancy. Governments have been implementing strategies to improve air quality. However, natural events have always played an important role in the concentration of air pollutants. In Australia, the lockdown period followed the Black Summer of 2019–2020 and coincided with the season of prescribed burns. This paper investigates the changes in the concentration of criteria pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and sulphur dioxide. The air quality data for the lockdown period in 2020 was compared with the pre-lockdown period in 2020 and with corresponding periods of previous years from 2016 to 2019. The results were also compared with the post-lockdown scenario of 2020 and 2021 to understand how the concentration levels changed due to behavioural changes and a lack of background events. The results revealed that the COVID-19 restrictions had some impact on the concentration of pollutants; however, the location of monitoring stations played an important role. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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17 pages, 14186 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Comparison Process of Blood Heavy Metals Absorption Linked to Measured Air Quality Data in Areas with High and Low Environmental Impact

by Nicoletta Lotrecchiano, Luigi Montano, Ian Marc Bonapace, Tenore Giancarlo, Paolo Trucillo and Daniele Sofia

Processes 2022, 10(7), 1409; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr10071409 - 19 Jul 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2495

Abstract

Air pollution is a problem shared by the entire world population, and researchers have highlighted its adverse effects on human health in recent years. The object of this paper was the relationship between the pollutants’ concentrations measured in the air and the quantity of pollutant itself inhaled by the human body. The area chosen for the study has a high environmental impact given the significant presence on the territory of polluting activities. The Acerra area (HI) has a waste-to-energy plant and numerous industries to which polluting emissions are attributed. This area has always been the subject of study as the numbers of cancer patients are high. A survey on male patients to evaluate the heavy metals concentrations in the blood was conducted in the two areas and then linked to its values aero-dispersed. Using the air quality data measured by the monitoring networks in two zones, one with high environmental impact (HI) and one with low environmental impact (LI), the chronicle daily intake (CDI) of pollutants inhaled by a single person was calculated. The pollutants considered in this study are PM10 and four heavy metals (As, Cd, Ni, Pb) constituting the typical particulates of the areas concerned. The CDI values calculated for the two zones are significantly higher in the HI zone following the seasonal pollution trend. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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12 pages, 2500 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prediction of PM2.5 Concentration on the Basis of Multi-Time Scale Fusion

by Jianfei Zhang and Wangui Xia

Processes 2022, 10(1), 171; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr10010171 - 17 Jan 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1820

Abstract

Long-term prediction of hour-concentration of PM2.5 (particles in atmospheric suspension with effective dimensions equal or lower than 2.5 microns) is of great significance for environmental protection and people’s health. At present, the prediction of hour-concentration of PM2.5 is mostly single-step prediction, which is to predict PM2.5 concentration at a future time point based on a period of historical data. In this paper, a model based on multi-time scale fusion is proposed to study single-step prediction and multi-step prediction, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed model is better than stacked LSTM and CNN-LSTM in predicting PM2.5 hour-concentration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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9 pages, 2377 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Impact of Air Pollution on Global Burden of Disease in 2019

by Meghnath Dhimal, Francesco Chirico, Bihungum Bista, Sitasma Sharma, Binaya Chalise, Mandira Lamichhane Dhimal, Olayinka Stephen Ilesanmi, Paolo Trucillo and Daniele Sofia

Processes 2021, 9(10), 1719; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9101719 - 25 Sep 2021

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 7074

Abstract

Air pollution consisting of ambient air pollution and household air pollution (HAP) threatens health globally. Air pollution aggravates the health of vulnerable people such as infants, children, women, and the elderly as well as people with chronic diseases such as cardiorespiratory illnesses, little social support, and poor access to medical services. This study is aimed to estimate the impact of air pollution on global burden of disease (GBD). We extracted data about mortality and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) attributable to air pollution from 1990 to 2019. The extracted data were then organized and edited into a usable format using STATA version 15. Furthermore, we also estimated the impacts for three categories based on their socio-demographic index (SDI) as calculated by GBD study. The impacts of air pollution on overall burden of disease by SDI, gender, type of pollution, and type of disease is estimated and their trends over the period of 1990 to 2019 are presented. The attributable burden of ambient air pollution is increasing over the years while attributable burden of HAP is declining over the years, globally. The findings of this study will be useful for evidence-based planning for prevention and control of air pollution and reduction of burden of disease from air pollution at global, regional, and national levels. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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20 pages, 6880 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Air Pollution Analysis during the Lockdown on the City of Milan

by Nicoletta Lotrecchiano, Paolo Trucillo, Diego Barletta, Massimo Poletto and Daniele Sofia

Processes 2021, 9(10), 1692; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9101692 - 22 Sep 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3330

Abstract

From February 2020, the progressive adoption of measures to contain coronavirus’s contagion has resulted in a sudden change in anthropogenic activities in Italy, especially in Lombardy. From a scientific point of view, this situation represents a unique laboratory for understanding and predicting the consequences of specific measures aimed at improving air quality. In this work, the lockdown effect on Milan’s (Italy) air quality was analyzed. The PM10 and PM2.5 values were measured by the ARPA Lombardia, and the real-time on-road (ROM) air quality monitoring network indicates the seasonality of these pollutants, which typically record the highest values in the coldest months of the year. The 10-year particulate matter concentrations analysis shows a PM10 reduction of 35% from 2010 to 2020. March 2020 data analysis shows an alternation of days with higher and lower particulate matter concentrations; values decrease in pollutants concentrations of 16%, respective to 2018. The complexity of the phenomena related to the atmospheric particulates formation, transport, and accumulation is highlighted by some circumstances, such as the Sahara dust events. The study showed that the trend of a general pollutant concentration reduction should be attributed to the decrease in emissions (specifically, from the transport sector) from the variation of meteorological and environmental conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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13 pages, 40425 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Simulation of the Novel Coronavirus Spread in Commercial Aircraft Cabin

by Mengya Zhang, Nu Yu, Yao Zhang, Xin Zhang and Yu Cui

Processes 2021, 9(9), 1601; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9091601 - 7 Sep 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2499

Abstract

Passengers carrying the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in a commercial aircraft cabin may infect other passengers and the cabin crew. In this study, a cabin model of the seven-row Airbus A320 aircraft is constructed and meshed for simulating the SARS-CoV-2 spread in the cabin with a virus carrier using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling tool. The passengers’ infection risk is also quantified with the susceptible exposure index (SEI) method. The results show that the virus spreads to the ceiling of the cabin within 50 s of the virus carrier’s normal breathing. Coughing makes the virus spread to the front three rows with a higher mass fraction. While the high mass fraction areas always stay on the same side of the aisle as the virus carrier, the adjacent passengers and the passengers in the back two rows are affected more than the others when the virus carrier breathes normally. Spread patterns under the carrier’s two breath conditions, normal breath and cough, were numerically simulated. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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15 pages, 6920 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Particulate Matter Exposures under Five Different Transportation Modes during Spring Festival Travel Rush in China

by Yao Zhang, Nu Yu, Mengya Zhang and Quan Ye

Processes 2021, 9(7), 1133; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9071133 - 29 Jun 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2177

Abstract

Serious traffic-related pollution and high population density during the spring festival (Chinese new year) travel rush (SFTR) increases the travelers’ exposure risk to pollutants and biohazards. This study investigates personal exposure to particulate matter (PM) mass concentration when commuting in five transportation modes during and after the 2020 SFTR: China railway high-speed train (CRH train), subway, bus, car, and walking. The routes are selected between Nanjing and Xuzhou, two major transportation hubs in the Yangtze Delta. The results indicate that personal exposure levels to PM on the CRH train are the lowest and relatively stable, and so it is recommended to take the CRH train back home during the SFTR to reduce the personal PM exposure. The exposure level to PM_2.5 during SFTR is twice as high as the average level of Asia, and it is higher than the WHO air quality guideline (AQG). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality Monitoring for Smart Cities and Industrial Applications)

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