Low-Cost Aerosol Size Distribution and Light Absorption Instruments for Urban Monitoring Applications

Emissions from energy production and other anthropogenic activities are altering the physical and chemical properties of the atmosphere and are linked to climate change, increased pollution in urban areas, and human health problems. This SBIR project will develop two new, low-cost, networkable airborne particulate matter measurement systems to measure black carbon and ultrafine particles from wildfires and other sources suitable for deployment in urban areas. The systems avoid problems with current approaches that are too large and costly. Our warming climate is amplifying environmental and human health problems in urban areas. Heat island effects, flooding, droughts, altered pollutant transport patterns, and human respiratory stress are examples of interactions between macro- and micro-climates that impact urban areas. The share of the global population living in cities is expected to rise to 80% by 2050, compared to 55% today. Therefore, cost-effective methods that can be deployed in large networks throughout urban areas and supply real-time data are required to mitigate the health and climate impacts of airborne particulate matter. Specifically, the SBIR project will support the development of: a light absorption device to measure black carbon and other absorbing aerosol, and a sizing and counting device to measure ultrafine aerosol number size distributions. Phase I demonstrated the technical feasibility of several key sub-systems of the devices. Phase II of the project will further develop designs and prototypes of the devices to minimize cost, size, weight, and power consumption. Prototypes will be tested with known particle sizes and chemical properties and under typical urban conditions to assess performance. A network of the devices will be deployed to test cloud data acquisition and analysis tools. Commercial applications and other benefits include creating new, cost-effective tools to study aerosol climate forcing and urban micro-climate/larger scale feedbacks, creation of data sets to validate urban airshed pollutant transport models, performing measurements using large sensor networks in health effects and exposure studies, and providing cost-effective, in-home air quality measurement tools.