In field testing, these samplers have been demonstrated to vary (CV) only 11.6% from Federal Reference Methods, when measuring course particulates (PM10-2.5), making this the most precise published passive particle monitor design (Ott, Cyrs, & Peters, 2008). Public Lab is evaluating the deployment of this technology.

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Developed originally for indoor dust monitoring at the University of North Carolina by Jeff Wagner and David Leith, this tiny monitor (in the middle of the housing, below) consists of a fine mesh cap over top of a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) pin stub, a small aluminum object that looks like a pin. Thomas Peters and Darrin Ott at the University of Iowa added a wind-and-rain housing so the monitors can be used outside. They also added a glass microscope slide cover on top of the stub, allowing lower-cost analysis with a standard visible-light microscope.

Analysis is performed in ImageJ. roughly:

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Citation: Darrin K. Ott, William Cyrs, Thomas M. Peters, Passive measurement of coarse particulate matter, PM10-2.5, Aerosol Science 39:156 – 167, 2008