Airborne Particulate

monitoring
By
Aadil Mahfooz
B150045CH
 Overview

• What is Particulate Matter (PM)?

• Sources of PM
• Problems caused by PM
• What needs to be measured ?
• Air Quality Instrumentation
• Conclusion
• References
 What is Particulate Matter (PM)?

• Particulate matter (PM) describes a wide variety of airborne material. PM

pollution consists of materials (including dust, smoke, and soot), that are
directly emitted into the air or result from the transformation of gaseous
pollutants.
• Particles come from natural sources (e.g., volcanic eruptions) and human
activities such as burning fossil fuels, incinerating wastes, and smelting
metals.
 Where do PM originate?
• Sources may emit PM directly into the environment or emit
precursors such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2),
and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are transformed
through atmospheric chemistry to form PM.
 Sources
There are two sources of particulate matter:
• Natural/Biogenic Sources
Forest fires, volcanoes, soil dust, sea salt, botanical debris…

• Anthropogenic Sources
Power plants, automobiles (engine exhaust, tires, brakes etc), fireplaces, deep-fryers,
aircraft, inhalers...
Sources of Air pollution in India (2019)
 Air particulate composition
• Elemental carbon particles:
• produced during combustion

• Organic particles:
• primary organic particles – emitted directly to
the atmosphere
• secondary organic particles – formed in the
atmosphere by oxidation and condensation of
volatile organic carbon – often requires
photochemistry

• Sulfates
• ammonium sulfate particles
• mixed ammonium sulfate-organic particles

• Nitrates
 Problems caused by PM
• Air Quality
• Human Health - 1.67 million people die due to Air pollution in 2019.
• Visibility – increases risk for road accidents and many logistical issues.

• Climate Impacts – smog, acid rain, greenhouse effect etc.

• Quality of Life and Economic Impacts – labour health issues, agriculture,
health expenditure.
 What needs to be measured?
• regulated gaseous pollutants are specific
– CO2, CO, SO2, NOx, HC, etc.
– measurement of gaseous concentration

• current regulatory focus for PM is mass concentration in most jurisdictions

• Europe has added number concentration for on-road vehicle emissions
• health and environmental researchers and policymakers are asking for more
specificity on PM
– size and size distribution
– composition
– surface area and surface reactivity
– optical properties (absorption and scattering)
 Air Quality Instrumentation
Airborne particles can be classified and characterized in a number of ways, for
example according to their physical, chemical or biological properties. The
most important physical properties of aerosol particles include:
• number and number size distribution
• mass and mass size distribution
• surface area
• shape and electrical charge
Various types of air quality monitoring devices
• Passive samplers
• Active samplers
• Automatic analyzers
• Beta Attenuation
• Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance Mass Detector (TEOM)
• Light Scattering Instruments
 Passive samplers

• Passive particle samplers can measure particle deposition (μg/(m2.s)) which

can be transformed into particle mass concentrations (μg/m3) only with the
help of a deposition velocity (m/s) according to the formula:
Concentration = deposition/(deposition velocity)

• Deposition velocities are not usually specifically known for particles of a

certain size distribution. Passive samplers are, therefore, not normally used
for quantitative measurements of ambient particle concentrations.
 Active samplers
• The gravimetric analysis of particles collected on a filter is a simple, accurate
and widely used method for determination of particle mass concentration.
• It requires accurate measurement of the sampling flow rate, and
measurement of the net mass collected on a filter.
• This is done by weighing the filter before and after sampling with a balance
located in a dust-free environment which is controlled for temperature and
relative humidity.
• The normal requirement is that the filters are equilibrated for 24 hours at a
constant (within ±5 per cent) relative humidity between 20 and 40 per cent
and at a constant (within ±3°C) temperature between 15 and 30°C. This is
intended to normalize the content of water absorbed by the filter material
 Automatic analyzers
• Instruments are commercially available using the following techniques:
• beta-ray absorption analyzers
• Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance (TEOM)
• light scattering systems

• Automatic analyzers of particle mass yield real-time data and do not require
capture of the analyzed particles for subsequent analysis.
• However, a shortcoming of some of these methods is that they do not
directly measure particle mass, but recalculate its value based on another
measured property.
 Beta Attenuation

• Beta attenuation is one of the oldest automatic methods for measuring

airborne particulate mass concentration. It uses the relationship of beta
attenuation’s approximate proportionality to the mass of the sample.
• Beta radiation passing through the collected sample is attenuated, and the
mass collected is proportional to the degree of the attenuation. The
response time depends on the concentration measured.
 Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance Mass
Detector (TEOM)
• The TEOM (Patashnik and Ruprecht, 1980) operates on the principle that
the particle sample is collected on a filter mounted on the thin end of a
tapered oscillating hollow element, which is fixed at its thick end.
• This element is electrically excited to oscillate at its natural resonant
frequency, which decreases with the mass loading of the filter.
• This change in resonant frequency is sensed electronically, converted to a
mass measurement, and displayed.
 Light Scattering Instruments
• Light scattering by small particles suspended in gases is widely applied to obtain
information about the concentration of airborne particles. Instruments based on this
principle combine real-time measurements of air sampled directly by the instrument,
with a high degree of automation.
• These instruments can be broadly divided into two categories:
• Nephelometers, and
• Photometers.

• Nephelometers are used for outdoor measurements.

• Photometers are perhaps the most commonly used direct-reading aerosol instruments
and have been commercially available for over 25 years in a variety of configurations.
 Conclusion

• Airborne particulate matter has significant, detrimental effects on health,

visibility, and climate.
• PM metrology is required
• to improve reliability and repeatability of measurements, and to reduce uncertainty
– critically important to climate change modelling
– necessary to improve association between health effects and PM properties
• for sound policy decisions and regulations
• Quality of measurements need to be improved to understand
• size and size distribution
• composition
• surface area and surface reactivity
• optical properties (absorption and scattering)
• mass of smaller size fractions (PM1.0)
 References
• Haq, Gary & Schwela, Dietrich. (2008). Air Quality Monitoring.
10.13140/RG.2.1.1816.8166.
• Greg Smallwood.(2013). Airborne Particulate Monitoring. Renewable Energy
and Climate Science for the Americas: Metrology and Technology
Challenges
• Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Health Risks, John Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health
THANK YOU
QUESTIONS