Abstract
It is difficult to find information about how the microAeth® AE51 performs, in spite of its versatility for about a decade in various research fields such as black carbon measurements and personal exposure studies. Stimulated by this, we conducted real-time tests for indoor aerosol in order to provide performance characteristics toward proper usage. We calculated the attenuation (ATN) using the reference signal together with the sensing signal to compare it with the ATN recorded in a microAeth® AE51. Performance was evaluated under extremely low concentration through the zero test, using filtered clean air. Ten-day-long continuous measurements were done for both indoor aerosol and filtered particle free air to examine the feasibility of microAeth® AE51 in an indoor use. Generally, MicroAeth® AE51 exhibited excellent performance, though it showed relatively low performance under some conditions. Noise was intensified while it was directly connected to a power adaptor. Another issue includes the occurrence of negative concentrations for extremely clean air. The noise amplification turned out to be related to a power source independent on the internal battery, and it was able to be removed by post-processing. Uncertainty analysis was carried out to better understand the origin of unwanted noise. Technical perspective of a proper usage will be addressed with regard to what will play a role for a long-term monitoring.
Highlights
Real-time measurements are important to research studies characterizing short-term variability such as measuring rapidly changing source emissions, quantifying the amount of black carbon (BC) including short-lived pollutants emitted by mobile sources such as vehicles, or monitoring dynamic trends in indoor or ambient air quality [1]
Motivated by the above discussion, we aim to investigate the errors regarding microAeth® AE51 by assessing its ability to reduce bias caused by the alteration of power source during a measurement
The ratio of BC concentration to ATN remains constant during the measurement, which verifies that microAeth® AE51 does not apply any corrections for filter loading and scattering effect
Summary
Real-time measurements are important to research studies characterizing short-term variability such as measuring rapidly changing source emissions, quantifying the amount of black carbon (BC) including short-lived pollutants emitted by mobile sources such as vehicles, or monitoring dynamic trends in indoor or ambient air quality [1]. The usage and development process of microAeth® AE51 (AethLabs, San Francisco, CA, USA), seem slightly different from that of most other analytical devices. Many of microAeth® AE51 have been used for exposure measurements because of their easy handling features similar to other personal air quality sensors and deployed to measure ambient BC as well. A wide range of researchers, including university labs, private companies, and government scientific research teams have used personal air quality sensors, though there has been a demand that addresses issues around interferences, humidity, calibration, and data usability [2]. Measurement devices are upgraded through the feedback from various users who have tested them in the field and have reported their characteristics, which is a development process as well in a broad sense
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