Had great time kicking off #NAAMC in Pittsburgh with a personal tour of NIOSH lab where they do a ton of work on mine safety and respiratory dust protection. This apparatus is designed to create a clean air curtain around workers in high Quartz-content dust generation activities.
This is a $50K dust vacuum closet designed to remove dust from workers clothes to avoid clothing-derived dust exposure post-shift.
This is a full scale mock up of this insane typewriter-like machine that shaves away the mining walls while also holding the ceiling up to prevent it from collapsing.
This is a room built to emulate/show how little room there is to maneuver around this massive digger machine that is worming its way through the center of the earth.
Two of the most sophisticated dust sampling chambers in the world where MOD-PM will be put to the test in the coming month to see how well it can measure these particles. TEOMs and APS running as ref kit.
Live action shot of MODULAIR-PM doing some routine facility monitoring.
A super fascinating tour and eye opening experience for me. Hard to grasp the sheer scale and complexity of the work that NIOSH does to keep workers safe. Thanks to Emanuele Cauda for the invite! Look forward to returning for some epic dust chamber exps in the Fall.
old school
Also pretty neat to be at the facility where my Aura was actually certified. 😷
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Looking forward to participating in tomorrow's #ClimatetechSummit and teaching folk that all AIR POLLUTION (not just CH4 + CO2) is worthy of their time/attention/resources.
The fight to save planet earth starts and ends with the air you breathe.
These are dust particles / 1-1000 micrometers in diameter / as far as air pollution particles go, these are BIG, way bigger than particles emitted from burning stuff (wood, gasoline, jet fuel, plastic bags, dung).
Being BIG means these particles will scatter light predominantly in the forward direction, relative to the light source (☀️) ⏩💨⏩👁️. In this video my eye is the detector, thus 'seeing' all that scattered light as I look back towards the setting sun.
This passing comment in tonight's #AAAR2022ID panel is one that really sticks with me. For much of this pandemic the thing that has F'd our collective response more than anything else is ppl's PERCEPTIONS of costs and benefits.
The strongly held BELIEF that running a box fan on low for 12h a day in every classroom of a school building for an entire school year will somehow bankrupt the district is straight up NOT TRUE.
Your PERCEPTION is wrong. Your off-hand comment is counter-productive. Your ability to do math is sub-par.
But this BELIEF is very strongly held by nearly all those in positions of power at schools bc frankly they WANT this statement to be true, so they don't have to deal w it.
- Expect the unexpected. In beginning we focused on healthcare facilities.. fitness centers.. restuarants - realized homes bc of poor ventilation were highest problem areas for virus aerosols.