Team:Ionis Paris/Air pollution

State of the Art

The iGEM IONIS 2016 team was created shortly after the COP21 conference that took place in Paris, France, in 2015. In the context of environmental measures to prevent further environment pollution and public health impact, we tried to conduct a survey about air pollution and its whereabouts.

Air pollution is characterized by the presence of gas and particles in the outside air with harmful impact on human health and/or on the environment. Those pollutants come from natural phenomena (volcanic eruption, organic matter decomposition, forest fire) as well as human activity (industry, transport, farming and residential heating) (insert source 1).

It is known that pollution has harmful effects on human health. According to the world health organization (WHO), 7 million premature deaths are due to atmospheric pollution, which equals to one eighth of the world annual deaths. The cost of those premature deaths in the WHO countries is $ 1.431 trillion per year.

In France, there are 3.5 million asthmatic people, 50 000 people suffering from serious respiratory deficiency, 150 000 deaths of patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases caused by air pollution (insert source 2). In addition of public health issues, those pollutants can have a harmful effect on the environment as they acidify waters and soils and decrease vegetal growth. Those effects trigger a decline in agricultural yield and alter aquatic ecosystems.

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Atmospheric pollution is an accumulation of complex phenomena. To be understood as a whole, local and regional emissions, meteorological conditions, transport as well as pollutant transformation must be considered (insert source 3).

Despite the fact that air pollution hardly contains over 2% VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds – Figure 10), the impact of those pollutants on health and environment is major. Volatile organic compounds can be defined as an organic chemical with a high vapour pressure (over 0.01 kPa). Those primary pollutants originate from fuel evaporation, car traffic, industrial processes, heating system in residential area, domestic use of solvent but also from vegetation. They have a role in secondary particle formation and ozone formation.

La Paillasse has put to our use laboratory material that are necessary for microbiology and molecular biology. The team can use freely hoods, centrifuges, and consumables to work on its project. This way of doing fits the DIY (Do It Yourself) spirit of the biohack spaces, and it allows us to manipulate with machines that we couldn’t afford otherwise.

VOCs are a preoccupation to the major actors of the energy field such as Total, Shell or Bouygues as well as governments and public institutions. They are leaders in research on pollution and are producing data that is essential for a better comprehension of how pollutants can impact ecosystems and their interactions with our society, being agriculture, fuel production, or industrial development.

VOCs can be sorted into three categories: