Monitoring of Ultrafine Particles in Rural and Urban Environments

Abstract

Ultrafine particles (UFPs) can penetrate deeper into the respiratory system and cause more adverse health effects than particulate matter of a larger size. Therefore, their measurement should be promoted and not only episodically. Within the framework of the PM-Lab project, Belgian, Dutch and German partners from the Meuse-Rhine Euregion joined their efforts to investigate this topic. The present study describes, on one hand, the technological choices together with the set up requirements to include such a system within an air quality network, and on the other hand, the first results of our different mobile campaigns. As the monitoring of UFPs is neither regulated by a European directive nor normalized yet, major differences exist between the systems available on the market; our choices are discussed. The sampling strategy consisted in a long-term monitoring at a rural background station in Vielsalm (Belgium), along with several short-term campaigns led in different locations, a mixed urban background and traffic site in Herstal (Belgium), a traffic site in Maastricht (The Netherlands) and an urban background site in Mulheim (Germany). Corresponding analyses and results are described with a focus on the differences appearing between rural and urban sites, mainly in terms of time and size distributions.