Issue 10, 2008
From the journal:

Journal of Environmental Monitoring

Performance of a newly designed continuous soot monitoring system (COSMOS)

Yuzo Miyazaki,*ab   Yutaka Kondo,*a   Lokesh K. Sahu,a   Junichi Imaru,c   Nobuhiko Fukushimac  and  Minoru Kanod  

* Corresponding authors

a Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, Komaba 4-6-1, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan
E-mail: [email protected]

b Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, N-19, W-8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Japan
E-mail: [email protected]

c Kanomax Japan, Inc., Suita, Osaka, Japan

d Kanomax Holdings, Inc., New York, USA

Abstract

We designed a continuous soot monitoring system (COSMOS) for fully automated, high-sensitivity, continuous measurement of light absorption by black carbon (BC) aerosols. The instrument monitors changes in transmittance across an automatically advancing quartz fiber filter tape using an LED at a 565 nm wavelength. To achieve measurements with high sensitivity and a lower detectable light absorption coefficient, COSMOS uses a double-convex lens and optical bundle pipes to maintain high light intensity and signal data are obtained at 1000 Hz. In addition, sampling flow rate and optical unit temperature are actively controlled. The inlet line for COSMOS is heated to 400 °C to effectively volatilize non-refractory aerosol components that are internally mixed with BC. In its current form, COSMOS provides BC light absorption measurements with a detection limit of 0.45 Mm−1 (0.045 µg m−3 for soot) for 10 min. The unit-to-unit variability is estimated to be within ±1%, demonstrating its high reproducibility. The absorption coefficients determined by COSMOS agreed with those by a particle soot absorption photometer (PSAP) to within 1% (r2 = 0.97). The precision (±0.60 Mm−1) for 10 min integrated data was better than that of PSAP and an aethalometer under our operating conditions. These results showed that COSMOS achieved both an improved detection limit and higher precision for the filter-based light absorption measurements of BC compared to the existing methods.

Graphical abstract: Performance of a newly designed continuous soot monitoring system (COSMOS)

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B806957C
Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Apr 2008
Accepted
06 Aug 2008
First published
29 Aug 2008

J. Environ. Monit., 2008,10, 1195-1201

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Performance of a newly designed continuous soot monitoring system (COSMOS)

Y. Miyazaki, Y. Kondo, L. K. Sahu, J. Imaru, N. Fukushima and M. Kano, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 1195 DOI: 10.1039/B806957C

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