UT Tyler engineers hope to clean up air

The objective of Texas Allergy, Indoor Environment, and Energy Institute: to pinpoint indoor air pollutants and develop technology to minimize them.

By Source: Brian Pearson, Business Editor, Tyler Morning Telegraph June 1, 2009

A nearby machine purrs as

Torey Nalbone, associate civil engineering professor, explains its purpose in

great detail.

 

According to a story in

the Tyler Morning Telegraph ,

in a lab on the University of Texas at Tyler

campus, Nalbone and his machine analyze the unseen, potentially nasty

nanoparticles that can emerge from everyday household and business items and

perhaps cause an array of health problems, including cancer.

 

The

work is for the Texas Allergy, Indoor Environment, and Energy Institute, or

TxAIRE, a collaborative grant project with UT partners in Dallas, Austin, Tyler’s

health science center and industrial partners.

The objective: to pinpoint

indoor air pollutants and develop technology to minimize them.

 

For

commercial purposes, it could mean businesses scrambling to improve air quality

and ventilation to avoid legal actions from employees claiming that what they

breathed on the job made them sick. In the biggest of all pictures, the cleaner

air could reduce worker absences — and employer health costs.

 

Read the full Tyler

Morning Telegraph story.