Abstract
Understanding the atmospheric concentration of pollen (which is one of the most common vectors of allergens) is necessary to determine the atmospheric allergen level. Airborne pollen concentrations were predominantly evaluated using volumetric and gravitational particle samplers. However, no previous studies have successfully shown whether these sampling methods can be used to evaluate actual airborne pollen concentrations. In this study, the relationship between wind speed and sampling efficiency was investigated to determine whether the influence of ambient wind speed on sampling efficiency was significant. To this end, the influence of wind speed was analyzed by comparing a volumetric sampler and a gravitational sampler. The experimental results indicate that an increase in the wind speed results in an increase in the sampling efficiency of the gravitational sampler because of fluctuations in the turbulence. Our simulation shows that when pollen is entrained in the turbulence, the changes in the wind speed, turbulence amplitude, and turbulence length influence the deposition rate of pollen on the gravitational sampler. These influences can be explained by the turbulence vibration model. These results show the inadequacy of existing evaluation methods, not only for pollen deposition data, but also for all types of bioaerosol deposition data.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Ms. Yuka Matsuda, a secretary at the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, for her invaluable assistance throughout this study. The authors express their appreciation to the office staff at the Tokyo Institute of Technology Earth-Life Science Institute.
Funding
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI [Grant Number 201812315].
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Miki, K., Kawashima, S., Kobayashi, S. et al. Evaluating inaccurate pollen concentrations caused by turbulence using passive sampler. Aerobiologia 38, 1–12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-021-09728-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-021-09728-1