Modification of the Palmes diffusion tube and semi-empirical modelling of the uptake rate for monitoring nitrogen dioxide

Abstract

Abstract Hereafter, a modification of the traditional Palmes diffusion tube by fitting a membrane at the open end of the tube is presented. The membrane is placed to avoid the effect of turbulence due to wind speed. Further optimisations of the volume of absorbent and number of meshes retaining the absorbent are also described. Finally, the sampler is placed in an air proof container and is ready to use in order to improve the quality of measurement. In order to evaluate the performance of the membrane-closed Palmes diffusion tube to monitor nitrogen dioxide (NO2), experiments were carried out in an exposure chamber. The relative effect of NO2, temperature, humidity, averaging time and wind speed on the uptake rate of the sampler were then studied. Among the uncontrolled variables, temperature and humidity are found to be the most important ones leading to variability of the uptake rate. Two equations, used to estimate the uptake rate are established. These equations were then applied on some field data and laboratory inter-comparison tests. The agreement between the chemiluminescence method and diffusive samplers changes from 20% of mean bias with the traditional Palmes diffusion tubes to 5% of mean bias with the membrane-closed Palmes tube (MCPT) at the same monitoring site. In the laboratory inter-comparison, the MCPT has shown to be able to correctly measure NO2 under two extreme exposure conditions in contrast with other diffusive samplers. The uncertainty of the sampler is evaluated. It fulfils the European Directive data quality objective of 25% for accuracy and therefore the sampler qualifies as an indicative method for NO2 monitoring.