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COMPARISON OF PM 2.5 AND PM 10 MONITORS
Citation:
Williams, R W., J C. Suggs, C. E. Rodes, P. A. Lawless, R B. Zweidinger, R K. Kwok, J P. Creason, AND L S. Sheldon. COMPARISON OF PM 2.5 AND PM 10 MONITORS. JOURNAL OF EXPOSURE ANALYSIS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY 10(5):497-505, (2000).
Impact/Purpose:
The primary study objective is to quantify the association(s) between day-to-day or experimental variations in ambient air particle mass concentrations and selected physiological functions in elderly persons living in a retirement centers or involved in selected clinical studies. The NERL will conduct exposure studies and provide real-time and integrated PM mass concentration and selected criteria pollutant data to assist the NHEERL collaborators conducting physiological monitoring in establishing selected health effect associations resulting from potential human exposures to PM-related air pollutants.
Description:
An extensive PM monitoring study was conducted during the 1998 Baltimore PM Epidemiology-Exposure Study of the Elderly. One goal was to investigate the mass concentration comparability between various monitoring instrumentation located across residential indoor, residential outdoor, and ambient sites. Filter-based (24-h integrated) samplers included Federal Reference Method Monitors (PM2.5-FRMs), Personal Environmental Monitors (PEMs), Versatile Air Pollution Samplers (VAPS), and cyclone-based instruments. Tapered element oscillating microbalances (TEOMs) collected real-time data. Measurements were collected on a near-daily basis over a 28-day period during July-August, 1998. The selected monitors had individual sampling completeness percentages ranging from 64% to 100%. Quantitation limits varied from 0.2 to 5.0 ug/m3. Results from matched days indicated that mean individual PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations differed by less than 3 ug/m3 across the instrumentation and within each respective size fraction. PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentration regression coefficients of determination between the monitors often exceeded 0.90 with coarse (PM10-2.5) comparisons revealing coefficients typically well below 0.40. Only one of the outdoor collocated PM2.5 monitors (PEM) provided mass concentration data that were statistically different from that produced by a protoype PM2.5 FRM sampler. The PEM had a positive mass concentration bias ranging up to 18% relative to the FRM prototype.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development funded and managed the research described here under EPA-NERL contract #68-D5-0040 to the Research Triangle Institute. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation for use.