CRBBP Process: Capturing Airborne PM

Using our patented Combined Remediation Biomass and Bio-Product Production (CRBBP) Process, our Maryland operating affiliate, ATP-MD, LLC (ATP-MD),  proposed a multi-faceted, Project, in Baltimore, Maryland, to, among many other things, capture flue gas CO 2, from power plants and other large CO 2 emitters, to remediate brownfield sites, in neighborhoods, and also capture substantial amounts of airborne particulate matter, which is especially important, these days, as the residents of communities impacted by this type of air pollution, suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases and, therefore disproportionately suffer from coronavirus illnesses to a much higher and much more severe extent.

The following research indicates that plants are able to filter airborne particulate matter:

Difference of Airborne Particulate Matter Concentration in Urban Space With Different Green Coverage Rates in Baoji, China - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31027177/

Also, the following research suggests that airborne particulate matter may, in fact, be a COVID-19 vector:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061713v1

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.0c01102

City data shows 19 percent of Baltimore residents have asthma, while statewide it's 14 percent; 30 percent of children are obese, compared with 15 percent statewide; 30 percent of city kids have had at least two traumatic childhood experiences, versus 19 percent statewide.

Health officials consider race a driver of many of the disparities in Baltimore, which is 62 percent African-American, compared with 30 percent in Maryland and about 13 percent nationally.

A comparison of disease rates of Baltimore's black population and the nation as a whole by Johns Hopkins researchers in 2010 found stark disparities: Black infants in Baltimore died at more than twice the national rate, and so did black diabetics. Black Baltimore residents were diagnosed with HIV at a rate 71/2 times the national rate.

Baltimore City statistics also show that blacks are far more likely than white residents to be hospitalized for several chronic diseases and drug or alcohol use, have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and report that their mental health is not good.

Data collected by the Big Cities Health Coalition from more than a dozen large metropolitan areas shows Baltimore in the bottom three for many health outcomes by race.

In summary, we can support several elements of the City's Sustainability Plan, by capturing power plant, industrial and transportation infrastructure CO 2 emissions, cleaning up contaminated brownfield sites, using the phytoremediation capabilities of our Bio-Crops, in poor, older neighborhoods, while the extensive leaf structure of our Bio-Crops are also capturing the air-born particulate matter, which is causing greater COVID-19 sickness and morbidity, while extracting three times the atmospheric CO 2 as newly-planted trees, even while we create much-needed, inner-city manufacturing jobs, converting the resulting Biomass into a variety of environmentally beneficial bio-products.

Our solution will serve the residents of Baltimore's poor, black, inner-city neighborhoods, who have been disproportionately suffering from air pollution-caused diseases and, therefore suffering more severely from COVID-19 illness and death.

To both better understand their needs, we have engaged with community based organizations to develop our strategy, which includes involving neighborhood residents in the planting of our Bio-Crops and in the processing of their biomass into various bio-products.

In addition to improving health outcomes, by providing new jobs in the impacted communities, we are enhancing the economic vitality of target communities, as well.

ATP-MD, LLC is looking forward to leveraging funding and technical assistance offered to it by the Exelon Foundation's Climate Change Investment Initiative (http://www.exelonfoundation.org/environment.html) to help demonstrate the full potential of our CRBBP Process, in the City of Baltimore, as a mechanism to enhance community health, even as the Bio-Crops which enhance health are also advances efforts to counter Global Warming, with CO 2 capture and carbon reuse strategies, coupled with efforts to promote the development of jobs in needy communities. 

This multi-tasking effort reinforces the impact of, and cost-effectiveness of each component.