AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Aerosol Spark Emission Spectrometer
LINA ZHENG, Pramod Kulkarni, M. Eileen Birch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIOSH
Abstract Number: 553 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract An Aerosol Spark Emission Spectrometer (ASES) has been developed for near real-time measurement of elemental concentration of submicrometer aerosols for personal and mobile applications. The instrument employs atomic emission spectroscopy using spark microplasma as the excitation source. The compact, hand-held instrument can simultaneously measure over 25 elements, including carbon, at a time resolution of few seconds to few minutes and detection limits of 0.01 to 1 micrograms per cubic meter. Its performance was evaluated in different workplace settings and the measurements were compared with time-integrated filter measurements. Overall design and development of the instrument will be presented; results from the laboratory and field studies, designed to evaluate analytical figures of merit of this new instrument will be discussed.