Development and performance evaluation of air sampler with inertial filter for nanoparticle sampling

Abstract

This paper describes the design and evaluation of an ambient air sampler consisting of a four-stage impactor and an inertial filter, for collecting various size fractions, including nano-particles, in a short sampling period. Impactor stages of PM10/PM2.5/PM1/PM 0.5 were successfully devised with a reasonable accuracy in terms of cutoff size and slope of the collection efficiency curves. The designed inertial filter had an aerodynamic cutoff size of dp50 ~65 nm with a satisfactory sharpness in classification. The total pressure drop of the sampler (hereinafter referred to as a "Nanosampler") was ~30 kPa at a flow rate of 40 L/min. The developed Nanosampler has advantages over currently available samplers such as LPI and nano-MOUDI, in terms of portability and loss of semi-volatile components in ultrafine particles by evaporation at a reduced pressure. Furthermore, the size distributions of the ambient particles measured with the Nanosampler compared favorably with those measured by the conventional instruments that are currently available on the market. © Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research.