Issues in Airborne Particulate Monitoring - Jim Mills

What’s the Particulate Matter?

Airborne particles have been arguably the most talked about pollutant in recent times displacing such things as ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide from the "most unwanted" list. This is understandable given the number of scientific studies published in the last few years implicating them to detrimental effects on human health. From the available evidence to date it is believed that they can exacerbate asthma and may cause other respiratory cardiovascular problems in certain vulnerable sections of the population and in the most severe cases can lead to early mortality.

Old particles – New Particles

Today’s particles are quite different particles than those responsible for the infamous London Smog’s of yesteryear or the soot type particles that caused the grime of the early 1900’s which were visibly evident in the air and on our buildings. The particulate matter (PM) in the 2000’s is often something you can’t see with the naked eye and it’s made of quite different stuff than in the past. Due to the introduction of catalysts on petrol cars, cleaner diesel fuels, the introduction of diesel traps, improvements in industrial emission controls together with other measures, particulate levels have certainly fallen sharply over the years. However as the chemical nature of the particles has also changed, they often contain more volatile compounds, are on average smaller and much more complex to define and to measure.