American Association for Aerosol Research - Abstract Submission

AAAR 35th Annual Conference
October 17 - October 21, 2016
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA

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Calibration of Portable and Personal PM2.5 Sensors

DI LIU, Da-Ren Chen, Virginia Commonwealth University

     Abstract Number: 171
     Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods

Abstract
The recent development of portable and personal PM sensors for the PM2.5 monitoring is very active. It is primarily stemmed from the high PM2.5 level encountered and the increasing public awareness of PM health consequence in foreign countries, such as China and India. As a result various PM sensors in small packages and at the price much lower than scientific instruments are now available in market. The performance of these portable and personal PM sensors however requires to be calibrated in order to properly monitoring the PM concentration in the ambient. In our study we had performed a series of experiments to calibrate these small PM sensors and investigated the effects that may influence the reading of these sensors.

Four optical sensors, i.e., Sharp, Shinyei, Samyoung and Oneair, one Personal Dust Monitor (PDM) from Thermal Scientific and Dusttrak from TSI were included in this study. A classic TEOM, which was calibrated using the filter method prior to this study, was used as the reference PM instrument. Test particles with the size distributions in different mean sizes, standard deviations and materials were either generated from nebulizing solutions of NaCl, Florescence slat and Methylene blue via various nebulizers or airborne via dispersing dry powders of fine and ultrafine dusts, and ASHRAI dusts. The performance of sensors under different flow conditions, including calm air, was studied. The detail results obtained in this study will be shared in this talk.