Request for Proposals (RFP):
Science for Solutions Research Grant

Opens: November 24, 2021
Closes: February 2, 2022

The Utah Division of Air Quality (UDAQ) is seeking proposals for air quality research projects that help achieve UDAQ’s goals and priorities for the upcoming 2023 fiscal year (FY). See the following section for a description of 2023 FY goals and priorities. Coinciding with this announcement, UDAQ expects to award nearly $500,000 in State funding. UDAQ anticipates awarding any number of grants from this announcement, subject to the availability of funds, the quality of proposals received, and other applicable considerations. Applicants are limited to three proposal submissions per funding cycle.

• Science for Solutions Research Grant – FY 2023 (467 KB)

Fiscal Year 2023 Goals and Priorities

In anticipation of supporting a collaborative field campaign for the summer of 2023 that focuses on summertime ozone in the Northern Wasatch Front, UDAQ will fund research projects this year whose results or investments will directly benefit that collaborative effort. Studies that use instruments that can be applied to the future large collaborative study focusing on summertime ozone are encouraged. To be considered for funding under this RFP, each project proposal must address at least one of the following topics:

I. Summertime Ozone Formation along the Wasatch Front

The Wasatch Front often experiences exceedances of the national ambient air quality standard for ozone during the summer. Regulating locally-formed ozone to reach attainment is complicated by the fact that ozone has a mix of different sources (local and non-local) and its formation can be limited by NOx, VOCs or both. To help establish control regulations, determining the sensitivity of ozone to NOx or VOCs is needed. Identifying VOCs that are most important to ozone formation and their sources, including volatile chemical products (VCPs), is also of interest. Determining the impact of halogens emissions on ozone formation is also needed. To inform and validate air quality models, ambient measurements of speciated VOCs, including biogenic and oxygenated VOCs, at high temporal frequency and spatial resolution are also of particular importance. Measurements that can help constrain emissions inventory estimates and understand the coupling of meteorology and chemistry are also needed. Better representation of complex meteorological features and chemical mechanisms in meteorological and air quality models, including CAMx which UDAQ uses for regulatory demonstrations, are also required. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

1. Trends, Sources and Chemistry
   • Biogenic VOCs
   • Aromatics, Oxygenated VOCs
   • VOCs reactivity, Radicals
   • Tracer compounds for VCPs
   • O3-NOx-VOC sensitivity
   • Halogens and their impact on O3 formation
   • Long-term trends in O3, exceedances and their relation to emissions
2. Meteorology-Chemistry Coupling
   • Regional background ozone
   • Slope and valley flows
   • Transport of O3 and its precursors (e.g. biogenic VOCs)
3. Emissions Inventory Improvements
   • Constraining area source inventory (e.g. scrap metal recycling facilities)
   • Halogens emissions rates
   • Speciation and magnitude of emissions from VCPs
   • Magnitude of emissions from biogenics
4. Air Quality/Meteorological Model Improvements
   • Surface albedo estimation
   • Regional background ozone
   • Halogens chemistry
   • VCPs chemistry
   • Local flows (slope, valley flows, etc.)

II. Wildfire Emissions and Air Quality

Wildfires emit large amounts of PM2.5, ozone and their precursors, leading to exceedances of the national ambient air quality standard for ozone and enhancements of PM2.5 concentrations during summertime. With wildfires becoming increasingly common, measurements that can be used to identify wildfire events and accurately quantify their impact on local air quality are needed to support exceptional events demonstrations. Methods and measurements that help improve model representation of fire emissions, plume rise, chemistry and transport are also of interest.

1. Methods to improve modeling of wildfire events (transport, chemical transformation, plume chemistry and rise, emissions, etc.)
2. Approaches for quantifying the contribution of wildfire emissions to local concentrations
3. Approaches for accurately identifying if locally-monitored exceedances are influenced by emissions from wildfire events (e.g. tracer ratios, pollutants diurnal cycles, time lag in O3/PM2.5 peak occurrences, influence of local meteorology)

Submission Instructions

Please download and review the RFP document for eligibility and conditions:

Science for Solutions Research Grant – FY 2023 (467 KB)

Proposals must comply with the proposal submission instructions and content requirements set forth in this RFP or else they will not be reviewed. In addition, proposals must be submitted via email to cpennell@utah.gov on or before the proposal submission deadline. Applicants are responsible for following the submission instructions of this announcement to ensure that their proposal is timely submitted.

To submit proposals, send your complete proposal application package via email to cpennell@utah.gov. The subject heading should include the project title and the applicant (organization) name, and FY2023. Proposals submitted after the submission deadline will be considered late and deemed ineligible without further consideration unless the applicant can clearly demonstrate that it was late due to UDAQ mishandling or because of technical problems associated with the state email system used for submission. Applicants affiliated with Universities must submit their proposals through their specific sponsored projects/research office.

Contact Information

Please contact Chris Pennell (cpennell@utah.gov) for questions relating to this RFP.