AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Calibration and Assessment of Low-cost, Portable Particle Counters for Accurate In-field Monitoring of Cookstove Emissions
DOMINIQUE INGATO, Alba Aguilar, Sunny Karnani, Rufus Edwards, Ali Mohraz, Derek Dunn-Rankin, UC Irvine
Abstract Number: 81 Working Group: Portable and Inexpensive Sensor Technology for Air Quality Monitoring
Abstract Cookstove emissions in the developing world have a major influence on local health outcomes and are a significant source of short-lived climate forcing agents both regionally and on a global scale. The basis for these calculations, however, is relatively poor and improved in-field emissions characteristics from these sources are required. Low-cost portable emissions counters have the potential to significantly improve the spatial representation of emissions from cookstoves when variability between individual stoves is large. However, the accuracy of such counters has not been well characterized for anisometric particles in the 0.5-3.0 micro-meter effective diameter range known to have negative health effects. A method of effectively calibrating a portable electronic particle counter, Dylos DC1100 Pro Air Quality Monitor, is presented using spherical, monodisperse silica particles synthesized via the Stober method, polystyrene spheres and soot. Separate calibration curves have been generated in order to achieve reliable particle counts for spherical particles, as well as soot and other anisometric particles within the 0.5-3.0 micro-meter range. This method may be applied to similar particle counters prior to in-field use.