Comparing measurements of carbon in diesel exhaust aerosols using the aethalometer, NIOSH method 5040, and SMPS

Iam Pou Ng, Hongbin Ma, David Kittelson, Art Miller

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Combustion aerosols consist mainly of elemental and organic carbon (EC and OC). Since EC strongly absorbs light and thus affects atmospheric visibility and radiation balance, there is great interest in its measurement. To this end, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a standard method to determine the mass of EC and OC on filter samples. Another common method of measuring carbon in aerosols is the aethalometer, which uses light extinction to measure "black carbon" or BC, which is considered to approximate EC. A third method sometimes used for estimating carbon in submicron combustion aerosols, is to measure particle size distributions using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) and calculate mass using the assumptions that the particles are spherical, carbonaceous and of known density. With an eye toward evaluating the use of these methods for measuring carbon in freshly emitted diesel aerosols, the objective of this paper is to compare the results among these methods and to investigate the role of OC when measuring the mass concentration of elemental carbon (or black carbon) in aerosols emitted by a medium-duty Diesel engine. Results indicate that the aethalometer response correlates well with the data from filter samples (R2 = 0.99), with a very slight positive interference at high levels of OC.

Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalSAE Technical Papers
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007
Event2007 World Congress - Detroit, MI, United States
Duration: Apr 16 2007Apr 19 2007

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