Development of New Personal Aerosol Samplers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Evans D ; Paik S ; Vincent J
• Description:
  Aerosol samplers are important to industrial hygiene through their role in the measurement (and hence regulation) of workers' exposures to airborne particles. New health-related, particle size- selective aerosol standards require that such measurement should reflect the true physical nature of human exposure; that is, the manner in which they are inhaled and penetrate into the respiratory tract. This, in turn, has stimulated the search for new generations of practical sampling devices. The inhalable fraction reflects what people actually inhale; that is, what passes through the nose and/or mouth during breathing. This is directly relevant to health effects in a wide range of working and other indoor environments. In turn, the thoracic sub fraction is directly relevant to asthma and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD). These areas are components of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). The primary broad objective of the proposed research was therefore to apply knowledge gained in previous research to the development of new small-scale, user-friendly personal aerosol sampling systems. More specifically we set out to (1) develop and use new knowledge of the theory of aerosol sampling to design new personal samplers for the inhalable aerosol fraction that are small, lightweight, convenient to use; (2) build a prototype inhalable aerosol sampler and test it for relevant conditions in the wind tunnel; and (3) test new samplers in actual workplaces. After the research began, interest became more sharply focused on sampling for the inhalable aerosol fraction. This is where the greatest technical challenges lie since it involves the interface between the sampler and the uncontrollable (at least in practice) external wind environment. So it was decided that the final aims of the research should focus almost entirely on sampling at low flow-rate for the inhalable fraction. This report mainly reflects that emphasis. However, a design study was carried out to realize anew prototype low-flow-rate sampler for the thoracic fraction. But this was not tested in the laboratory or in the field. Overall, this research proved the hypothesis that it is indeed possible to develop sampling instruments with desired performance characteristics based on an improved knowledge of the physics of aerosol sampling. The initial parts of the research comprised a set of laboratory investigations leading to the development of a prototype low- flow-rate sampler for the inhalable aerosol fraction. During this work, we achieved a number of important new advances in aerosol sampling science, including identification of the limits of detection quantitation for the gravimetric assessment of small masses in sampler collection cassettes and substrates, and a better understanding of the aspiration efficiencies of sampling devices when sampling at low flow-rates. These were important contributions towards the desired endpoint of a new low-flow-rate sampler for the inhalable fraction. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aerosols Air Pollutants, Occupational Air Pollution, Indoor Environmental Health Occupational Health Particulate Matter Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety
• Keywords:
  Aerosol-sampling Airborne-particles Humans Indoor-air-pollution Indoor-environmental-quality Particulate-sampling-methods Pulmonary-system-disorders Respiratory-system-disorders Sampling-equipment Sampling-methods
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-88
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20022428
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2003-103820
• Citation:
  NIOSH 2003 Feb; :1-88
• Contact Point Address:
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• NORA Priority Area:
  Disease and Injury: Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
• Performing Organization:
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19980930
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20020929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:970e5c20e564eb1eef7f94a7d60c710ff14df58d8ede774bb04d9eff6ff4bcc759815512bf1c0cf719027b481b71604706157f5a13104d929190366bda60bf63
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/217996/cdc_217996_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 5.59 MB ]