Performance Characteristics of Low-Volume PM10 Inlet and TEOM Continuous PM Sampler

Abstract

Four identical PM10 pre-separators, along with four identical low-volume (1m3/hr) total suspended particulate (TSP) samplers and two Tapered Element Oscillation Method (TEOM) samplers-one with TSP inlet, one with PM10 inlet were tested side-by-side in a controlled laboratory dust chamber. The four PM10 and four TSP samplers were also tested in an oil pipe-cleaning field to evaluate the PM10 sampler’s performance characteristics. The dusts used in the chamber tests had MMD’s larger than 10 µm, whereas the dust emitted from oil pipe cleaning system for the field tests had MMD’s smaller than 10 µm. The co-located TSP/PM10 sampler testing results indicate that PM10 samplers over-sample when exposed to ambient PM having mass median diameters (MMD’s) larger than 10 µm aerodynamic equivalent diameter (AED) and under-sample when exposed to ambient PM with MMD smaller than 10 µm. The over-sampling / under-sampling rates varied with the change of MMD and the dust loading (TSP concentration). The cut-points and slopes of the PM10 preseparator changed with the change of MMD’s of inlet particulate matter (PM). The comparison of TEOM and TSP results indicates that TEOM/TSP yielded excellent agreement measurement with TSP samplers.