PM0.1 Personal Sampler for Evaluation of Personal Exposure to Aerosol Nanoparticles

A PM0.1 personal sampler devised by the authors (Furuuchi et al., 2010a) was investigated into its performance for the practical application, or on an improvement for a smaller cut-off size and also the removal of coarse particles using pre-cut impactors. The pressure drop through the inertial filter was discussed along with the separation performance since it is important to use a portable battery pump. An improved PM0.1 personal sampler was applied to several field measurements to discuss the nanoparticles exposure. The improved PM0.1 personal sampler is shown in Fig.1, which consists of pre-cut impactors of PM1.4/PM5.6 for the removal of coarse particles of micron order, a webbed SUS inertial filter (pre-filter) to remove of sub-micron particles a layered mesh inertial filter (main filter) to separate particles at 100 nm. The main filter consists of layered square mesh TEM grids sandwiched by spacers with circular hole in a circular nozzle through an aluminium cartridge. A pre-filter consisting of webbed SUS fibers packed in a circular nozzle is located upstream the main inertial filter and a backup filter on a holder located downstream the main filter. The performance of the sampler was evaluated following a previous report (Furuuchi et al., 2010b). In order to validate the measured value by the PM0.1 personal sampler, concentration and size distribution of ambient aerosol particles were compared between those from the PM0.1 personal sampler and Nanosampler. The PM0.1 personal sampler was applied to field measurements in working and living environments: textile factory, printing factory, main road side, smoker’s house, breathing zone of a smoker.