Dataset Information

Humidity and gravimetric equivalency adjustments for nephelometer-based particulate matter measurements of emissions from solid biomass fuel use in cookstoves.

ABSTRACT: Great uncertainty exists around indoor biomass burning exposure-disease relationships due to lack of detailed exposure data in large health outcome studies. Passive nephelometers can be used to estimate high particulate matter (PM) concentrations during cooking in low resource environments. Since passive nephelometers do not have a collection filter they are not subject to sampler overload. Nephelometric concentration readings can be biased due to particle growth in high humid environments and differences in compositional and size dependent aerosol characteristics. This paper explores relative humidity (RH) and gravimetric equivalency adjustment approaches to be used for the pDR-1000 used to assess indoor PM concentrations for a cookstove intervention trial in Nepal. Three approaches to humidity adjustment performed equivalently (similar root mean squared error). For gravimetric conversion, the new linear regression equation with log-transformed variables performed better than the traditional linear equation. In addition, gravimetric conversion equations utilizing a spline or quadratic term were examined. We propose a humidity adjustment equation encompassing the entire RH range instead of adjusting for RH above an arbitrary 60% threshold. Furthermore, we propose new integrated RH and gravimetric conversion methods because they have one response variable (gravimetric PM2.5 concentration), do not contain an RH threshold, and is straightforward.

SUBMITTER: Soneja S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4078586 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Humidity and gravimetric equivalency adjustments for nephelometer-based particulate matter measurements of emissions from solid biomass fuel use in cookstoves.

Soneja Sutyajeet S Chen Chen C Tielsch James M JM Katz Joanne J Zeger Scott L SL Checkley William W Curriero Frank C FC Breysse Patrick N PN

International journal of environmental research and public health 20140619 6

Great uncertainty exists around indoor biomass burning exposure-disease relationships due to lack of detailed exposure data in large health outcome studies. Passive nephelometers can be used to estimate high particulate matter (PM) concentrations during cooking in low resource environments. Since passive nephelometers do not have a collection filter they are not subject to sampler overload. Nephelometric concentration readings can be biased due to particle growth in high humid environments and d ...[more]

PMID: 24950062

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Ship engine emissions are important with regard to lung and cardiovascular diseases especially in coastal regions worldwide. Known cellular responses to combustion particles include oxidative stress and inflammatory signalling. OBJECTIVES:To provide a molecular link between the chemical and physical characteristics of ship emission particles and the cellular responses they elicit and to identify potentially harmful fractions in shipping emission aerosols. METHODS:Through an air-liquid interface exposure system, we exposed human lung cells under realistic in vitro conditions to exhaust fumes from a ship engine running on either common heavy fuel oil (HFO) or cleaner-burning diesel fuel (DF). Advanced chemical analyses of the exhaust aerosols were combined with transcriptional, proteomic and metabolomic profiling including isotope labelling methods to characterise the lung cell responses. RESULTS:The HFO emissions contained high concentrations of toxic compounds such as metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and were higher in particle mass. These compounds were lower in DF emissions, which in turn had higher concentrations of elemental carbon ("soot"). Common cellular reactions included cellular stress responses and endocytosis. Reactions to HFO emissions were dominated by oxidative stress and inflammatory responses, whereas DF emissions induced generally a broader biological response than HFO emissions and affected essential cellular pathways such as energy metabolism, protein synthesis, and chromatin modification. CONCLUSIONS:Despite a lower content of known toxic compounds, combustion particles from the clean shipping fuel DF influenced several essential pathways of lung cell metabolism more strongly than particles from the unrefined fuel HFO. This might be attributable to a higher soot content in DF. Thus the role of diesel soot, which is a known carcinogen in acute air pollution-induced health effects should be further investigated. For the use of HFO and DF we recommend a reduction of carbonaceous soot in the ship emissions by implementation of filtration devices.

Dataset Information

Humidity and gravimetric equivalency adjustments for nephelometer-based particulate matter measurements of emissions from solid biomass fuel use in cookstoves.

Publications

Humidity and gravimetric equivalency adjustments for nephelometer-based particulate matter measurements of emissions from solid biomass fuel use in cookstoves.

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