Winter comparison of TEOM, MiniVol and DustTrak PM10 monitors in a woodsmoke environment

This paper compares PM10 mass concentrations data generated by three co-located particulate monitors, the tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM40) (operating at 40 °C), MiniVol and DustTrak, operating outdoors during winter woodsmoke air pollution (Christchurch, New Zealand). TEOM40 data were adjusted to adjTEOM40 with an algorithm derived from a co-located TEOM40 and HiVol at a second field site. Corrected and corrected-loge-transformed data were analyzed with reduced major axis regression. Logged adjTEOM40 and DustTrak data correlated best (r2=0.81) but the DustTrak required a substantial correction factor to make data comparable in real terms. Consistent over-recording by the DustTrak and under-recording by the TEOM40 were consistent with previously published work. The MiniVol did not correlate well with other instruments (r2=0.62 and 0.53 against the adjTEOM40 and DustTrak, respectively) but reasons for this cannot be ascertained.