Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon’s(PAH’s) harmful aspects & way of its mitigation:  

What is PAH? :  

 In our atmosphere has many gases like CO2, CO, SO2, NOx, CFC, PAH, etc. and dust which is responsible for air pollution. But nowadays, PAH becoming a headache for mankind. Because forest fires, burning of fuel are increasing day by day and these are producing PAH mostly.  

PAH is a hydrocarbon. It is a chemical compound containing only carbon and hydrogen that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The group is a major subset of the aromatic hydrocarbons. The simplest of such chemicals are naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are uncharged, non-polar molecules, with distinctive properties due in part to the delocalized electrons in their aromatic ring.

Adverse effects of PAH:

•It has a high degree of acute toxicity in the human body.

•Cancer is the endpoint of PAH toxicity.

•Increases lung, skin, and bladder cancers, tumors, skin irritations.

•It has moderate to high acute toxicity to aquatic life and birds.

•Makes the soil highly contaminated.

Some of the experimental research is done in new work by repeat air and urine sample. The report of work is Multiple NYC legislative regulations targeting traffic-related air pollution may have led to decreases in PAH nonvolatile and BC, especially in the non-heating season. Despite the overall decrease in pyrene over the 2001–2012 periods, a rise in pyrene levels in recent years, that was particularly evident for measures collected during the heating season, and 2-naphthol indicates the contribution of heating oil combustion and other indoor sources to airborne pyrene and urinary 2-naphthol. 

Another research work also got shocking news and that is Biomarkers of PAHs exposure were inversely associated with lung function and decrease of ph of EBC as a marker of airway inflammation in Mexican school children. 

This research shows that how PAH increasing its effect day by day

How to mitigate PAH? : 

Magnetic graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4/Fe3O4) nanocomposite is a solution for the extraction of PAH.

To mitigate PAH, preliminary separation and pre-concentration of these compounds are usually required. So Nanoscale carbon-based materials are used as solid sorbent materials due to their ultrahigh surface area and high chemical stability. We use their magnetic graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4/Fe3O4) nanocomposite which has attracted much attention in the preconcentration of target analytes from different real samples, due to their gentle separation and non-destructive effects on biological analytes. As the main advantage, target analytes captured to them can be easily and selectively removed from the sample with an external magnet.

•In our air capture machine sample, a suction fan will be used to input the air. 

•A filter will be placed there to separate dust from the macro particle.  

•Then the air will go for the next step where magnetic graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4/Fe3O4) nanocomposite will be kept. 

•It will capture PAH and an exhausting fan will exhaust fresh air. 

our future target: 

 In the future, we will try to mitigate other harmful polluting particles from the air through our idea and try to find the best way to solve this kind of problem. We will study how to use or recycle these pollutants in a proper way for our future with no emission.

Sources:

1stsource of data: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/dls/oatb_capacity_11.html

2nd source of data: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604599/pdf/nihms726393.pdf

3rd source of data: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/pah/docs/pah.pdf

4th source of data::https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-and-health/household-air-pollution/pollutants/common-pollutants-from-household-heating-cooking-and-lighting

Hello, this is team FLITAXE. We're very glad to be a part of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2020. Thanks Basis for arranging this year's first all-virtual annual event which has created a great opportunity of learning and exploring for us. This competition has helped us to divert our minds from the ongoing pandemic situation and innovate something new. In this competition, the contribution of our team members Shazed Muntashir, Arpon Chowdhury, Sumaiya Parvez Pranti, Jannatul Nayeem Shiham and Kaneez Fatema was really appreciable. All our team members have worked hard and done their respective jobs with so much dedication and enthusiasm. We would like to specially thank Mohammad Mahdee-uz Zaman Apu Sir and all our honourable mentors who have helped us throughout the journey. They've helped us to develop ideas regarding our project and tried their best to solve our problems.