AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
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Evaluation of Five Samplers to Determine Personal Bioaerosol Exposure in Indoor and Outdoor Environments
NIRMALA THOMAS, Taewon Han, Hyeon-Ju Oh, Gediminas Mainelis, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Abstract Number: 169 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract Four existing personal aerosol and bioaerosol samplers and one newly-developed personal bioaerosol sampler were used to determine personal exposures to bioaerosols at three distinctly different locations. Personal Electrostatic Bioaerosol Sampler (PEBS) was the in-house sampler developed at Rutgers University, and the other samplers were CIP 10-M sampler (Air Sampling Devices, Milford, NH), Ultrasonic Personal Aerosol Sampler (UPAS; Access Sensor Technologies, Fort Collins, CO), NIOSH Personal Bioaerosol Cyclone Sampler 251 (NIOSH, USA) and Button Aerosol Sampler (SKC, Inc., Eighty Four, PA). The sampling locations included outdoors, a horse barn, and a greenhouse on Rutgers Cook campus. These locations had different wind speeds, temperature, relative humidity, and local microenvironments. Two sets of all five samplers were placed on the chest of two mannequins to represent sampling from an individual’s breathing zone, and samples were collected twice at each location. Total bacteria and fungi were counted by epifluorescence microscope and hemocytometer chamber, while culturable bioaerosols were determined by plating. Viable bioaerosols were detected using bioluminescence of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and cFDA-AM/Propidium Iodide cell viability assays. The measured ATP concentrations varied from 103 to 106 Relative Luminesces Units (RLU)/m3. PEBS had the highest percentage of live/viable cells (mean fraction: 40 ± 4%; p < 0.05). However, the injured cell percentages did not vary significantly between the samplers. The highest culturable concentrations of bacterial and fungal cells were collected by NIOSH sampler, but it was not statistically different from that measured by PEBS and Button samplers (p > 0.05). Our results suggest that personal samplers’ collection mechanism and sample retrieval techniques affected their ability to measure bioaerosols accurately.