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Asbestos Measurement
Citation:
Kominsky, J., D. A. VALLERO, AND M. E. BEARD. Asbestos Measurement . 2008, Chapter A-Z, Yearbook of Science & Technology. McGraw-Hill Companies, New York, NY, 2008:20-26, (2008).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD′s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA′s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
Environmental engineers are generally concerned with two types of air pollutants, gases and particulate matter (PM). Generally, the mass of PM falling in two size categories is measured, i.e. ≤2.5 µm diameter, and between 2.5 µm and 10 µm diameter. These measurements are taken by instruments (see Fig. 1) with inlets using size exclusion mechanisms to segregate the mass of each size fraction (i.e. “dichotomous” samplers). Particles with diameters ≥10 µm are generally of less concern, since their mass is sufficiently large that they rarely travel long distances. However, they are occasionally measured if a large particulate emitting source (e.g. a coal mine) is nearby.