Abstract
This grant is written to request funding to support the 18th International Congress on Combustion
By-Products and their Health Effects, also known as PIC to be held May 20-22nd, 2024 in
Durham, NC. This enduring and small conference provides a unique platform to share the latest
science and exchange ideas across and among a diverse group of researchers from various
fields, including academia, industry, and government officials. The goal of the Congress is to
foster interactions and collaborations in a more narrowly focused research field compared to other
large discipline-specific scientific conferences that have a larger breadth and parallel session
formats. The Congress is held biennially and brings together scholars and researchers from
diverse fields such as chemistry, toxicology, engineering, epidemiology, and occupational and
public health to bear on a variety of issues related to combustion and thermal processes.
Participants are international and hail from academia, government, and industry research groups.
Given the focus on combustion byproducts and health, this Congress has a long-standing
affiliation with the Superfund Research Program (SRP). The SRP has long supported research
on combustion products found at legacy Superfund sites, but also due to natural and accidental
fires that lead to exposure to hazardous chemicals. Due to failing infrastructure, accidental and
transportation fires (e.g. fires associated with train derailments), can significantly impact the local
environment and increase concern about health impacts on the surrounding communities.
Additionally, hazardous materials found at Superfund sites can produce combustion-derived
pollutants that deserve specialized research and investigation that is not normally afforded to the
originally abandoned material. However, for this Congress, combustion is used in the broadest
sense of the word and includes all forms of thermal reactions, even those used to produce energy
or remediate wastes. Thus, it will also include discussions on the generation and health effects of
toxic by-products from other thermal reactions including energy recovery, materials recovery, and
climate change aspects as it pertains to the combustion emission and environmental health.