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Comparison of four mobility particle sizers with different time resolution for stationary exposure measurements

  • Special Issue: Environmental and Human Exposure of Nanomaterials
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Abstract

Exposure to airborne ultrafine and nanoparticles has raised increased interest over the recent years as they may cause adverse health effects. A common way to quantify exposure to airborne particles is to measure particle number size distributions through electrical mobility analysis. Four mobility particle sizers have been subject to a detailed intercomparison study, a TSI Fast Mobility Particle Sizer (FMPS), a Grimm Sequential Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS+C), and two TSI Scanning Mobility Particle Sizers (SMPSs), equipped with two different condensation particle counters (CPC). The instruments were challenged with either NaCl or diesel soot particles. The results indicate that the sizing of all tested instrument was similar with only the FMPS size distributions consistently shifted toward smaller particle sizes. The Grimm SMPS generally measured higher concentrations and broader distributions than the TSI instruments. The two Grimm DMAs agreed well with each other; however, the TSI SMPS results showed a reproducible dependence on the flow rates. While TSI and Grimm SMPS delivered consistent results for sodium chloride (NaCl) and diesel soot, the FMPS seemed to react differently to the changing particle source than the SMPSs, which may be caused by either the different morphology or particle size dependent effects. For NaCl particles, the FMPS delivered the narrowest distributions and concentrations comparable with TSI SMPSs, whereas for diesel soot, it delivered the broadest distributions and higher concentrations than TSI SMPSs.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the NanoCare project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Energie- und Umwelttechnik (IUTA), 47229, Duisburg, Germany

    Christof Asbach, Heinz Kaminski, Heinz Fissan & Thomas A. J. Kuhlbusch

  2. Institut für Gefahrstoffforschung (IGF), 44789, Bochum, Germany

    Christian Monz & Dirk Dahmann

  3. Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, 76344, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

    Sonja Mülhopt & Hanns R. Paur

  4. Bayer Technology Services GmbH, 51368, Leverkusen, Germany

    Heinz J. Kiesling, Friedhelm Herrmann & Matthias Voetz

Authors
  1. Christof Asbach
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  2. Heinz Kaminski
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  3. Heinz Fissan
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  4. Christian Monz
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  5. Dirk Dahmann
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  9. Friedhelm Herrmann
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  11. Thomas A. J. Kuhlbusch
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Correspondence to Christof Asbach.

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Asbach, C., Kaminski, H., Fissan, H. et al. Comparison of four mobility particle sizers with different time resolution for stationary exposure measurements. J Nanopart Res 11, 1593–1609 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-009-9679-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-009-9679-x

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