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Measurements collected using five real-time continuous airborne particle monitors were compared to measurements made using reference filter-based samplers at Bakersfield, CA, between December 2, 1998, and January 31, 1999. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the suitability of each instrument for use in a real-time continuous monitoring network designed to measure the mass of airborne particles with an aerodynamic diam less than 2.5 µm (PM 2.5 ) under wintertime conditions in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Measurements of airborne particulate mass made with a beta attenuation monitor (BAM), an integrating nephelometer, and a continuous aerosol mass monitor (CAMM) were found to correlate well with reference measurements made with a filter-based sampler. A Dusttrak aerosol sampler overestimated airborne particle concentrations by a factor of ~3 throughout the study. Measurements of airborne particulate matter IMPLICATIONS Regulatory agencies need instruments that can monitor the concentration of PM 2.5 in real time so that public health advisories can be issued during severe pollution events. Three types of continuous, real-time instruments have been identified that can function in a routine PM 2.5 monitoring network during winter conditions encountered in central California: the BAM, the integrating nephelometer, and the CAMM. Each instrument performed well within a broad PM 2.5 concentration range composed of both volatile and semi-volatile particulate matter.made with a tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) were found to be lower than the reference filterbased measurements by an amount approximately equal to the concentration of NH 4 NO 3 observed to be present in the airborne particles. The performance of the Dusttrak sampler and the integrating nephelometer was affected by the size distribution of airborne particulate matter. The performance of the BAM, the integrating nephelometer, the CAMM, the Dusttrak sampler, and the TEOM was not strongly affected by temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, or wind direction within the range of conditions encountered in the current study. Based on instrument performance, the BAM, the integrating nephelometer, and the CAMM appear to be suitable candidates for deployment in a real-time continuous PM 2.5 monitoring network in central California for the range of winter conditions and aerosol composition encountered during the study.

The Jing Ltd. miniature combustion aerosol standard (Mini-CAST) soot generator is a portable, commercially available burner that is widely used for laboratory measurements of soot processes. While many studies have used the Mini-CAST to generate soot with known size, concentration, and organic carbon fraction under a single or few conditions, there has been no systematic study of the burner operation over a wide range of operating conditions. Here, we present a comprehensive characterization of the microphysical, chemical, morphological, and hygroscopic properties of Mini-CAST soot over the full range of oxidation air and mixing N 2 flow rates. Very fuel-rich and fuel-lean flame conditions are found to produce organic-dominated soot with mode diameters of 10-60 nm, and the highest particle number concentrations are produced under fuel-rich conditions. The lowest organic fraction and largest diameter soot (70-130 nm) occur under slightly fuel-lean conditions. Moving from fuel-rich to fuel-lean conditions also increases the O:C ratio of the soot coatings from ∼0.05 to ∼0.25, which causes a small fraction of the particles to act as cloud condensation nuclei near the Kelvin limit (κ ∼ 0-10 −3 ). Comparison of these property ranges to those reported in the literature for aircraft and diesel engine soots indicates that the Mini-CAST soot is similar to real-world primary soot particles, which lends itself to a variety of process-based soot studies. The trends in soot properties uncovered here will guide selection of burner operating conditions to achieve optimum soot properties that are most relevant to such studies.

[1] Five new instruments for semicontinuous measurements of fine particle (PM2.5) nitrate and sulfate were deployed in the Atlanta Supersite Experiment during an intensive study in August 1999. The instruments measured bulk aerosol chemical composition at rates ranging from every 5 min to once per hour. The techniques included a filter sampling system with automated water extraction and online ion chromatographic (IC) analysis, two systems that directly collected particles into water for IC analysis, and two techniques that converted aerosol nitrate or sulfate either catalytically or by flash vaporization to gaseous products that were measured with gas analyzers. During the one-month study, 15-min integrated nitrate concentrations were low, ranging from about 0.1 to 3.5 mg m À3 with a mean value of 0.5 mg m À3 . Ten-minute integrated sulfate concentrations varied between 0.3 and 40 mg m À3 with a mean of 14 mg m À3 . By the end of the one-month study most instruments were in close agreement, with r-squared values between instrument pairs typically ranging from 0.7 to 0.94. Based on comparison between individual semicontinuous devices and 24-hour integrated filter measurements, most instruments were within 20-30% for nitrate ($0.1-0.2 mg m À3 ) and 10-15% for sulfate (1-2 mg m À3 ). Within 95% confidence intervals, linear regression fits suggest that no biases existed between the semicontinuous techniques and the 24-hour integrated filter measurements of nitrate and sulfate;, however, for nitrate, the semicontinuous intercomparisons showed significantly less variability than intercomparisons amongst the 24-hour integrated filters.

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