Efficiency of a Tailor Made NO2 Passive Sampler and Correlations of NO2, PM10 and PM10 - bound NO3- in Urban Air of Chiang Mai (Thailand)
Chanakarn Khamkaew [a] and Somporn Chantara*[a,b]* Author for corresponding; e-mail address: somporn.chantara@cmu.ac.th
Volume: Vol.40 No.3 (JULY 2013)
Research Article
DOI:
Received: 6 January 2012, Revised: -, Accepted: 31 October 2012, Published: -
Citation: Khamkaew C. and Chantara S., Efficiency of a Tailor Made NO2 Passive Sampler and Correlations of NO2, PM10 and PM10 - bound NO3- in Urban Air of Chiang Mai (Thailand), Chiang Mai Journal of Science, 2013; 40(3): 386-400.
Abstract
This work aims to find out the efficiency of simple equipment in comparison with automatic instruments for NO 2 measurement, to analyze the correlations of air pollutants obtained from different techniques and to investigate the transformation of gaseous NO2 to particulate NO3- on PM10 particles. PM10 and NO2 samples (n = 47) were collected from the air quality monitoring (AQM) station containing automatic equipment in the urban area of Chiang Mai, Thailand, using both a mini volume air sampler and tailor made passive samplers. High correlations of the concentrations obtained from the two different techniques were observed for both PM10 (r = 0.98) and NO2 (r = 0.94). The results showed high efficiency of the tailor made passive samplers and a significant possibility of using them for NO2 measurement. PM10 and NO2 concentrations were also well correlated (r = 0.93). A correlation between the particulate phase (PM10 and PM10-bound NO3-) was very strong (r = 0.98), while a correlation between NO2 and NO3- (r = 0.90), was also high, which revealed transformation of the gas - to particle - phase on PM10 particles.