18th International Congress on Combustion By-Products and their Health Effects - 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.
