Human Health

The COVID pandemic has opened our eyes to the key role airborne droplets play in transmitting diseases. Tools like the PILS and GCVI can sample large, COVID-containing droplets and other chemical species directly from the air and maintain viable virus samples for on-line analysis or off-line studies using vial collection. Airborne particles impact human health when we inhale them and they penetrate deep into the lung. Especially small particles can damage the human nervous system when they pass through the air-blood boundary of the lung and hitch a ride on our circulatory system until they deposit at a nerve ending, where they can ‘short-circuit’ the nerve. Combustion particles with small bits of metal are especially worrisome. Brechtel has developed the PILS to measure aerosol chemistry in an easy-to-use, cost effective and compact package.