Filter Aerosol Measurements for ARM
The goal of this study was to determine the best filter media for use in ARM PSAPs following the manufacturer discontinuation of the current filter media. The study comprised by multiple experiments to assess four potential replacement filter medium relative to the Pallflex E-70, which is being discontinued, and is documented in ARM ServiceNow under ENG0003846. The experiments laid out in the document ‘180504 Filter Aerosol Measurements for ARM.docx’ and several subsequent tests suggest that the Pallflex Emfab media is the best candidate for ongoing ARM filter-based absorbance measurements. Other media were ruled out based on particle-capture efficiency for small particles. In tests with Nigrosin, EMFAB exceeded all other media. Tests were done measuring reported absorbance for all media in Particle Soot Absorption Photometers (PSAPs) operated in parallel sampling under several conditions: ambient air, 3 sizes of black-dyed PSL (Poly Styrene Latex) spheres, and Nigrosin particles. These tests indicate a different factor of reported absorbance for each media relative to the original Pallflex E70 filter. The factor for the Azumi media was consistent with unpublished work by Ogren (NOAA). The tests described here were not exhaustive and were complicated by time-varying differences among the PSAPs used. However, it is concluded that they are sufficient to justify ARM switching to Emfab filter media for future ARM PSAP measurements. The remaining store of E70 will be reserved to quantitatively characterize differences between Emfab and E70 (and Azumi?) in both laboratory and field side-by-side tests as put forth in a succeeding ENG. This future work will empirically identify correction factors applicable to Emfab and quantify the uncertainty in comparing the historical E70 measurements with ongoing Emfab measurements. Comparison of PSAP measurements with an independent absolute ‘reference’ for aerosol absorbance, i.e., PhotoThermal Interferometry or difference measurements of Cavity Attenuated Phase Shift extinction (CAPS) minus Nephelometry scattering would be valuable but exceed the scope of ARM Infrastructure. While the characterization of correction factors is required for maintaining and improving accuracy in future absorption measurements, it was beyond the scope of the current study.