The Air We (Want to) Breathe: The Chemistry of Pollution, Episode 1

In the first episode of our series on pollution, we’re turning to the very thing necessary for human life: air. Environmental engineer Pete DeCarlo introduces us first to the tools chemists use to study the air, including the early innovations by chemist Arnold Beckman. These tools alarmed us to the problem of air pollution and its impact on human health, from the smog derived from cars in Los Angeles to the gases escaping from factories in Louisiana, the home of Cancer Alley, an 85-mile industrial stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But the threat of air pollution doesn’t just exist outside. During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists (and the world) woke up to the viruses and particles polluting the air in our homes, office buildings, and schools. Indoor air quality engineer Richard Corsi urges that this indoor air pollution is a public health issue and that cleaning our air through proper ventilation is the way to mitigate this issue. He even created a low-cost way to filter indoor air that you can make at home. This episode is packed with public health crises, ingenious scientific inventions to analyze the unseen, and calls for cleaner air for the health of humanity. Transcripts and episode sources at acs.org/chainreaction