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COMPARISON OF INTEGRATED SAMPLERS FOR MASS AND COMPOSITION
Citation:
Solomon, P A., K. Baumann, E. Edgerton, L. A. Gundel, R. Tanner, D J. Eatough, H. Maring, D. Savoie, AND S. Natarajan. COMPARISON OF INTEGRATED SAMPLERS FOR MASS AND COMPOSITION. Presented at AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 15-19, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
The core aerosol research for FY01 includes evaluation of newly developed and developing methods for the chemical analysis and sampling of PM in ambient air, especially state-of-the-art continuous and non-invasive aerosol measurement methods, and the study of the aerosol sampling processes to better assess the true aerosol concentration and size distributions observed in the ambient environment. An additional emphasis is placed on integrated sampling for stable and semi-volatile organic aerosol species. This latter area addresses the state-of-the-art in this measurement area. This program supports Title I of the Clean Air Act in its mandate for performing research to support the NAAQS, GPRA goal 1.1.5, and ORD's main research objective on PM.
Much of this work directly supports OAQPS and may be applied within the Supersites Program managed jointly by OAQPS and ORD. This research also will support many of ORD's long-term research goals by providing more reliable information (decrease uncertainty) on ambient aerosols that can be utilized for characterizing risk.
Finally, an APM, has been established to develop measurement methods for causal factors, due in 2004. Currently, there are a number of causal factor hypotheses, but none have sufficient evidence to support developing one measurement/analytical method over another. The PM methods team will support and work with Joellen Lewtas on methods for the collection and analysis of semi-volatile and aerosol phase organic species to help address this APM. The PM methods team will continue to work within the Supersites program and with OAQPS and their new partners in ORIA to further evaluate continuous species specific methods and aerosol physical property measurement methods.
Description:
The primary objective of EPA's Atlanta Supersites Project was to compare and evaluate a wide variety of samplers from time-integrated mass only monitors, to integrated and semi-continuous chemical speciation samplers, to single particle mass spectrometers. This paper will describe the evaluation/comparison of the 24-hour average integrated PM2.5 chemical speciation samplers and 12-hour average MOUDI samplers averaged to 24-hours. Samplers include those available for EPA's National Chemical Speciation Network, plus several used in the public/private research sector. The latter include two slightly different Particle Composition Monitors (PCM), two slightly different PC-BOSS samplers, and a MOUDI sampler, as well as the IOGAP sampler for organic carbon. Fifteen samples were collected on odd calendar sampling days. The comparison will include mass and its major chemical components (sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, organic carbon, and elemental carbon) and minor and trace elements (those typically observed by XRF). PM2.5 chemical speciation data will be compared to a relative reference value calculated as the average across all integrated samplers on a species-by-species basis and relative to an FRM where chemical composition is determined and to a VAPS sampler containing denuders and reactive filters for collecting semi-volatile species (nitrate and semi-volatile organic carbon) with minimal bias. The FRM will be used for comparison of stable species (trace metals and sulfate) while the VAPS will be an additional relative reference for nitrate and organic carbon.
This work has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Portions of the work were performed under Contract Nos. 68-D5-0040 and 68-D-00-206 by Research Triangle Institute. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.