Comparison of PM10 concentrations in high- and medium-volume samplers in a desert environment

The USEPA replaced TSP with PM10 as the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for particulate matter. The commercially available PM10 sampler is a high-volume model using quartz fiber filters. In certain investigations, such as source apportionment studies, chemical analysis of the filter is necessary, however, many analyses cannot be run on quartz filters. An alternate filter such as Teflon is amenable to XRF and ion chemical analyses but is not amenable to analysis for carbon. To overcome these problems DRI constructed a medium-volume PM10 sampler that is capable of collecting particulates on both Teflon and quartz fiber filters simultaneously. This paper describes the design of the DRI medium-volume PM10 sampler, discusses a method for determining equivalence of two samplers, the results of applying the method to test the equivalence of the medium-volume sampler and a commerical high-volume sampler, and examines differences between PM10 and TSP measurements in a southwestern desert.