Comparison of the Grimm 1.108 and 1.109 portable aerosol spectrometer to the TSI 3321 aerodynamic particle sizer for dry particles

This study compared the response of two optical particle counters with that of an aerodynamic particle sizer. The optical particle counters rely on the amount of incident light scattered at 90 degrees by a particle to measure particle number concentration by optical particle size. Two models of optical particle counters from Grimm Technologies were used: the portable aerosol spectrometer (PAS) 1.108 (0.3-20 mu m in 15 channels); and the PAS 1.109 (0.2-20 mu m in 30 size channels). With a substantially different operating principle from that employed by the optical particle counters, the aerodynamic particle sizer (APS) model 3321 (TSI, Inc., St Paul, MN, USA) sizes particles according to their behavior in an accelerating flow to provide particle number concentration by aerodynamic size over a slightly narrower size range (0.5-20 mu m) in 52 channels. The responses of these instruments were compared for three sizes of monodisperse solid aerosols composed of polystyrene latex spheres and a polydisperse aerosol composed of Arizona test dust. The PASs provided similar results to those from the APS. However, there were systematic differences among instruments in number and mass concentration measurement that depended upon particle size.