AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Spectral Intensity Bioaerosol Sensor (SIBS): Description and Updated Initial Characterization of a Novel Commercial Instrument for Spectrally-Resolved Fluorescence Measurements of Individual Particles
NICOLE SAVAGE, Tobias Könemann, Gary Granger, Gavin McMeeking, Hang Su, Petya Yordanova, Roman Frohlich, Ulrich Poeschl, Christopher Pöhlker, J. Alex Huffman, University of Denver, CO
Abstract Number: 516 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract Until recently the understanding of bioaerosol properties had been limited by the lack of instrumentation capable of characterizing biological particles with high time and size resolution. The Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Sensor (WIBS) provides information about fluorescence of individual particles in two excitation and two emission channels. The Spectral Intensity Bioaerosol Sensor (SIBS) is a new instrument developed by Droplet Measurement Technologies (DMT) that improves upon the spectral resolution of the WIBS and other commercial bioaerosol sensors by providing higher resolution spectral information. The SIBS measures time-resolved fluorescence following sequential excitation at 280 and 370 nm over 16 emission channels spanning a range of approximately 288-734 nm. The instrument provides single particle fluorescence measurements, fluorescence lifetime, an asymmetry factor, and particle size for each interrogated particle.
We performed an initial instrument comparison between the SIBS, WIBS, and Ultraviolet Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (UVAPS) instruments using various non-biological and bioparticle standards such as fungal spores, metabolic compounds, humic and fulvic acids, amino acids, and dust. The first round of characterization began in the summer of 2015, and preliminary results were presented in a poster at the AAAR conference 2015. During the initial study we realized that the prototype instrument required significant technical improvements before it was deployable. Since that point the instrument has received several major modifications and upgrades including the addition of a quadrant photomultiplier tube detector (PMT) for asymmetry analysis, a cooled PMT (Hamamatsu), and a modified control board to reduce electrical and thermal noise in fluorescence detection. We have repeated characterization experiments and will report particle sizing and fluorescence spectral properties observed by the SIBS and other instruments.