Nationwide Speciated Particulate Monitoring – IMPROVE and CSN at UC Davis

  • by Sandra E Hemingway
Overview

The Air Quality Monitoring Team (AQMT) at UC Davis has operated the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) ambient speciated particulate monitoring network since its inception in 1988. Beginning in 2015, AQMT took on the laboratory analysis and data handling for the Chemical Speciation Network (CSN). These two networks encompass over 300 sites delivering over 60 PM2.5 species across the country every third day.

MTL Weighing Chamber

The AQRC Sample Handling Lab serving IMPROVE network has been equipped with a benchtop MTL environmentally controlled weighing chamber that provides compliant environment (Quality Assurance Guidance Document 2.12) for ambient air quality research. Air velocities, temperature, dew point, and airborne particle counts are controlled and below their regulatory thresholds.

RDI Sampling and Analysis

Rotating Drum Impactor (RDI) samplers collect size-segregated samples with variable time resolution. Multiple non-destructive analyses of RDI samples are available, including synchrotron-induced X-Ray Fluorescence (SXRF) that provides quantitative elemental data of elements.

Primary contacts: Yongjing Zhao and Nicholas Spada.

HIPS

Since 1994, the researchers at Air Quality Research Center are measuring the light absorption by particles collected on filters for IMPROVE network. This measurement has been conducted on developed in house instrument called HIPS (Hybrid Integrating Plate and Sphere system) operating at a single wavelength using red light of 633 nm from a He(Ne) laser. 

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