What is Air Pollution?

Air Pollution is the presence of pollutants or contaminants in the air in such a concentration that
is harmful to human health and nature as a whole.
So basically, we consider pollution when the concentrations of harmful entities exceed a specific
limit. Below that limit, we don't consider the limited presence of contaminants/ pollutants as
pollution.
Question: But why a limit? Why can't we target Zero pollution?
It is our limitation and compulsion, the compulsion of industrialization and societal growth. All
human activities have a contribution to pollution. For example, the car we ride, the electricity we
use, the food we cook, the products we use, all the amenities we enjoy contribute to pollution.
We cannot eliminate all of them and live in the jungle or a mountain cave and live a pristine
lifestyle.
Question: Then what is the point of studying Air Pollution?
The good news is nature has self-purification ability; it can resolve or absorb pollution to a
certain level. So if we can lower down our generated pollution level to that limit, we are safe
with the grace or kind help of Mother Nature.
Question: What is our specific role as Air Pollution Engineers?
We can do two things: Control and Cure.
Control means reducing (because we are now far higher than the prescribed limit) and keeping
the pollution level at a permissible limit so that nature can handle the pollution effect and absolve
us for the little crime.
Question: Who sets the limit, and how it is set?
The Pollution Control Board sets the limit. It is different for different countries. And the limit is
decided from the receptor perspective, which means it is the maximum permissible pollution that
human lungs can withstand without getting adversely affected.

As we have already mentioned, we can fight air pollution in two ways, first by controlling the
pollution and second by providing engineered solutions to reduce the existing pollution.
However, as we have a minimum or zero control on ambient air movement, once the pollutants
are introduced to the atmosphere, controlling or capturing them through any engineered air
purification process is extremely challenging. Air purification techniques work well in the indoor
environment, in a closed volume condition, but difficult in outdoor conditions. It is to be noted
every air purification technique and engineered solutions require energy in some form, which
also creates pollution. So control is the best and permanent way of tackling air pollution. The
holistic concept is if we create less pollution and maintain control, eventually, the pollution level
goes down, and a clean ambience will be reestablished.
Engineers are also inventing green technologies, which mean we will not compromise
our modern life amenities and comfort but will find alternate ways of producing energies that
will not create pollution. However, without a doubt, control is the best and most sustainable way
of tackling pollution of any kind, and engineered solutions can work in parallel.
For control, the first thing is the measurement, knowing how much pollution is present,
from where it is coming from, what are the constituents and how much we need to reduce to
achieve the permissible limit. And this Lab course is about learning the air quality
measurements/ monitoring techniques and getting acquainted with different measuring
instruments, their working principles, applications and limitations, followed by data
interpretation.
It is to be noted that air pollutants are primarily categorized as suspended particles (PM)
and gases. And more precisely, only small suspended particles (PM10, PM2.5, PM1) are
considered as the major threat to human health. Because larger particles have little residence
time in the air, they are easily removed by dry deposition (settling down by gravity force) or wet
deposition (combine action of rainfall and gravity). And secondly, human nostrils and breathing
mechanisms are designed in such a way that anything larger than PM2.5 is not able to enter into
human lungs. So air pollution researchers and engineers are keenly interested in analyzing the
finer particles, PM2.5 and PM1. PM10 is also analyzed as total suspended particles.
If we penetrate further, we can see that we are talking about concentrations of air
pollutants so far. We quantify them as concentrations, and concentration means mass per unit
volume. There are different instruments and approaches for measuring pollutants. The most
common is gravimetric measurement. In this technique, the concentration of the suspended
particles are calculated. One should not get confused what mass it is. It is the summation of mass
of particles present in the unit volume of air. Air is a complex matrix and particles of different
size are present. However, as we mentioned earlier we are concerned with those particle size
ranges that directly influence human health and activity, PM10, PM2.5, PM1 etc. Now we
exactly need to know what these PM10, 2.5 and 1 means.
PM10: Particles having aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 10 micron. Means it
is a size range which includes all particles having aerodynamic diameter 10 micron and smaller.
Similarly PM2.5 means Particles having aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.5
micron and PM1 means Particles having aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 1 micron.
PM10: particles having dia. 10 micron-0 micron
PM2.5: particles having dia. 2.5 micron-0 micron
PM1: particles having dia. 1 micron-0 micron
So it is easy to understand that PM1 is a subset of PM2.5 and PM2.5 is a subset of
PM10.
Now you might have noticed that we have used the term aerodynamic diameter instead of
simple diameter.
Question: What is ‘aerodynamic diameter’ and why do we use aerodynamic diameter?
What is the problem of using simple diameter?
In the air we have various kinds of particles. They are different in size, shape and have
different chemical compositions as they originate from different sources and have undergone
different physical and chemical transformations in the atmosphere.
However, if we want to classify them as per their size, it is important to note that they have
different shapes, they are not perfect spheres. They are natural particles and have organic shapes.
So if we want to categorize them in terms of size, it is not possible to do on the basis of their
physical diameter. They are not even spheres then how to represent a nonspherical shape in terms
of a diameter? So we must have an equivalent concept. And aerodynamic diameter exactly
serves this purpose of normalizing particles of different size and shape to a hypothetical
diameter.
The aerodynamic diameter of a particle is defined as that diameter of a sphere, whose density is 1
g cm−3 (density of water), which settles in still air at the same velocity (due to gravity) as the
particle of interest of whatever shape and density.
One must remember that the aerodynamic diameter of a particle is not their actual
diameter, it is just a standard practice of representing them with a diameter of a sphere having the
same settling velocity. In simple words, the actual particle (any density and shape) and the
hypothetical particle (having density same as water and perfect sphere) will have the same
gravitational settling velocity. And the diameter of the hypothetical particle is the aerodynamic
diameter of the actual particle.

Why to segregate particles? PM10, PM2.5, PM1?

As we have already discussed, air is a complex matrix, containing particles of all possible
sizes. But we, the air pollution engineers, are interested in analyzing only those size ranges of
particles which have direct influence on human health. In the early days of air pollution research,
researchers were interested in PM10, because it gives the estimation of the total suspended
particle loading in the atmosphere. Above PM10 particles have very less residence time in the air
and easily settle down through gravity. However, with the advancement in our understanding in
air pollution research, aerosol science, human health assessment etc. scientists realize that the
PM2.5 size range is more closely associated with human health. PM2.5 is obviously a part or
subset of PM10 but particles larger than PM2.5 (PM10-PM2.5) contribute to the total pollution
but not directly impact on human health through respiration pathway. Most of the particles larger
than PM2.5 are arrested in different locations in our nasal passage and do not reach the lungs. So
they can be considered as less harmful. So PM2.5 is a better representation of human health risk
associated with particulate matter air pollution. In recent practice we are giving importance in
separately analyzing PM1 size range because they are very fine particles and penetrate deep into
human lungs and have severe health impacts. Again, it is to be realized that we were analyzing
PM1 before also, as a part of PM2.5. However, we are now analyzing PM1 as separate also for
more detailed understanding of particle behavior and associated health risk.
So it can be understood that if we don't segregate and collect representative particles of
our interest size range we will not achieve our specific research goal which is analyzing PM10,
PM2.5 and PM1, their ambient concentration, chemical characterization/ constituents, source
identification, behavior in the atmosphere, impact on natural ecosystem and processes and most
importantly human health risk assessment. And all we do from the perspective of air quality
monitoring followed by enforcing control and mitigation action and developing future strategies
for fighting air pollution.
Air pollution research, Off-line and Online Instruments: Is it necessary to have both the
instruments?

We have already discussed that dedicated and extensive research on air pollution is
obligatory for air quality measurement, source recognition, and quantification of air pollutants to
control and mitigate air pollution to protect human health and preserve various ecosystems and
universal welfare.

Air pollution research includes the collection of samples from the field, followed by
gravimetric and chemical analysis. Air samplers are scientific research instruments which collect
representative samples from the field for both gaseous and particulate constituents of air. Air
samplers are primarily categorized according to measurement techniques (on-line versus off-
line), particle cut-off size (PM10, PM2.5, PM1) and volumetric flow rate (high-volume versus low-
volume).

In off-line PM measurements, particulate samples are collected on a filter substrate and

analyzed subsequently in the laboratory (depending on scientific interest) by several techniques
like ion chromatography (IC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas
chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry
(ICP-MS), total organic carbon (TOC) analysis, elemental and organic carbon (EC-OC) analysis,
morphological analysis etc. This entire process produces a detailed database on the collected
pollutants, and with data analysis and scientific interpretation, the air quality is widely being
assessed.

In off-line PM air sampling measurement, size-specific collections of representative

particles are essential to estimate the genuine health risk because small particulates, below a
specific size range (PM2.5), have large surface area and can favor many chemical reactions to
occur onto its surface, undergo long-range transport and also enter deeper into human lungs and
thereby becomes responsible for health impacts as described earlier. The size-specific collection
of particulate matter is done either by cyclonic separation or by inertial impaction.

Cyclone based air samplers are generally high-volume samplers and collect PM10 with
excellent efficiency.
 Inertial impactors collect PM2.5 and PM1 with fairly good collection efficiency while
operating at a low flow rate.

With technological advancement, optical/mobility-based on-line air sampling

instruments, like Optical Particle Counter (OPC), Aerosols Mass Spectrometer (AMS),
Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS), Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS) have been
developed and used in aerosol measurement. These sophisticated instruments are quite costly and
cannot be afforded for mass scale measurement and require a highly-skilled operator for accurate
operation. Their potential use is restricted to the real-time quantification of pollutants. Moreover,
with online techniques, it has become feasible to assess real-time certain atmospheric processes.

However, off-line measurement techniques are pretty precise and comparatively less
costly, though time-consuming and tedious, on the other hand. The off-line methods are
appropriate for the bulk and compound-specific analysis of pollutants. Nevertheless,
comprehensive research on air pollution requires both the online and off-line measurement
techniques to capture the information on short-term variability and wide-range of species in
ambient PM.

In modern days, alternate approaches of utilizing global atmospheric models are also
extensively used for PM exposure estimation. However, these models are associated with
substantial uncertainty and coarse spatial resolution, and thus, the accuracy in estimation is
compromised.

With technological advancement in the field of electronics, low-cost sensors have also
been developed and have a prospect in PM monitoring. However, their calibration, zero counts,
accuracy and data reliability are subjects of rigorous investigation. In this context, ground-based
monitoring techniques are pretty reliable and accurate and aid as core information to low-cost
monitoring networks , mobile monitoring methods, or hybrid models. Conjoining ground-based
measurements with satellite-based remote sensing data, and chemical transport models, a holistic
understanding of the global PM distribution can be achieved.

How to segregate particles? PM10, PM2.5, PM1?

 Before answering this let's first understand how we separate two things from each other.
The basic of separating two objects/ entities is applying an influencing factor/force on of both the
objects and there must be a significant difference in response of the two objects to that external
force/ factor. Under the influence of that external force the behavioral changes or response of the
objects will be different from each other and on the basis of their responsive activity they will be
distinguished and thus separated. For easy understanding how do we separate magnetic materials
from non magnetic materials? Applying by magnetic forces right? If we apply magnetic force
they will react differently, one category will be attracted and the other category will stay neutral.
Similarly air suspended particles (particulate matters) can be segregated on the basis of
their inertia difference by Inertial Impactors and Cyclonic separators. They are famous devices
and used in air pollution, aerosol technology and similar research fields for size selective
collection of particulate matter.