AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
A Network of Low-Cost Sensors to Monitor Ambient PM2.5: A Case Study in Jining, China
XIAOHUI QIAO, Qiang Zhang, Fenglin Liu, Jingkun Jiang, Tsinghua University
Abstract Number: 118 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract A distributed monitoring network consisting 176 particulate matter (PM) sensors was set up to measure spatial-temporal variations of ambient PM2.5 in Jining, China. Model A4 PM sensor from Oneair was selected among seven sensors from different manufacturers. Its performance was evaluated using laboratory generated NaCl and NH4NO3 aerosol. Test aerosol with stable size distributions was generated using an atomizer. A DustTrak (Model 8533, TSI Inc.) was used as the reference instrument. Relative humidity (RH) was varied from 15% to 95% during the experiments and its influence on sensor performance was elucidated. After calibrating the sensor performance, a monitoring network was set up in Jining, China. A total of 176 PM sensors were spatially distributed. The network includes 48 urban sites, 9 suburban sites, 53 sites near major pollution sources, 13 roadside sites, and 53 sites close to 8 national monitoring stations. The influence of local RH in Jining was corrected. A cosine similarity index (CSI) was used to test the reliability of the sensor during the campaign. This study illustrated that low-cost PM sensors can be used to complement existing national PM2.5 monitoring networks.