Development and Validation of a High-Volume, Low-Cutoff Inertial Impactor

Abstract

A low-cutoff, high-volume conventional impactor has been designed. This sampler uses a slit-shaped acceleration jet and operates at 1100 L/min. The impaction substrate is polyurethane foam (PUF). The impactor collection efficiency was characterized using polydisperse particles, and the 50% size cutoff point was 0.12 ¡m. Losses within the sampler were also characterized and were less than 10%. The use of polyurethane foam (PUF) as a substrate has the following advantages: (I) PUF has a very high particle collection efficiency over a large range of particle sizes, even under conditions of heavy particle loading, as compared to other impaction substrates, such as flat plates and less porous membranes, which typically are subject to significant bounce-off and reentrainment; (2) no oil or grease coating is required, so potential interferences of impurities within such coatings are avoided when chemical, biological, and toxicological tests are performed on the collected particles; (3) PUF itself is chemically inert, minimizing interference with any of these tests; (4) because of the high flow rate of 1100 L/min, a large amount of particles can be collected in a short period of time on a relatively small surface of substrate, facilitating recovery of the collected particles for the different tests; and (5) a large amount of particles can be collected on a relatively small collection surface and easily extracted with small amounts of water or organic solvents. This method will be suitable for the collection of large amounts for toxicological studies and analysis of organic aerosols, which is not possible with other high-volume samplers that utilize large filtration surfaces.