AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
An Automated Microenvironmental Aerosol Sampler (AMAS) for Location/Activity Exposure Assessment
CASEY QUINN, David Cate, Dan Miller-Lionberg, Charles Henry, John Volckens, Colorado State University
Abstract Number: 273 Working Group: Linking Aerosols with Public Health in a Changing World
Abstract This work describes the development and evaluation of an automated microenvironmental aerosol sampler (AMAS). Existing personal exposure assessment devices and methods are expensive and cumbersome which hinders exposure assessment for larger-scale epidemiology studies. The AMAS is a low-cost, wearable device containing four filter-pump assemblies designed to measure personal exposure to air pollution for both panel-based epidemiological studies as well as 'citizen science' applications. A novel aspect of this device is that it collects particulate matter from within distinct personal microenvironments (such as at home, at work, and in transit). The device operates autonomously, using data from on-board sensors (GPS, light intensity, temperature, pressure, acceleration) to determine when an individual enters a given microenvironment and then initiates sampling through one of three micropump-filter assemblies. The AMAS is about the size of a cell phone, weighs less than 250 g, and consumes about 900 mW of power, which allows for up to a forty-eight-hour run time. Anodic stripping voltammetry, colorimetric microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (mPADs), and image processing were used to quantify the trace metals (lead, cadmium, and zinc), reactive oxygen species, and black carbon collected on the filters. These analytic techniques provide rapid but accurate sample analysis which also reduce analytic costs by a factor of 10 overall (total analysis cost under $2 per sample). Filter analysis results for reactive oxygen species (5-20 pmol min-1 µg-1), lead (3-6 ng), cadmium (1.0-2.5 ng), zinc (1.5-4 ng), and black carbon (0.2-4 µg (m3)-1) were determined for the 48-hour personal samples. These detection sensitivities translate to air concentrations of nanograms per cubic meter (or lower, depending on sampling duration in each microenvironment). The sampler collection efficiency and evaluation methods were verified using traditional analytical techniques and personal samplers. The results indicate that the AMAS is a feasible approach for low-cost analyses of exposures in common microenvironments.