The influence of humidity on the performance of a low-cost air particle mass sensor and the effect of atmospheric fog

Jayaratne, Rohan; Liu, Xiaoting; Thai, Phong; Dunbabin, Matthew; Morawska, Lidia

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4883-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4883-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4883-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 8

Research article

|

27 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2018

The influence of humidity on the performance of a low-cost air particle mass sensor and the effect of atmospheric fog

Rohan Jayaratne, Xiaoting Liu, Phong Thai, Matthew Dunbabin, and Lidia Morawska

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Aug 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 18 Apr 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 May 2018
- AC1: 'Response to Referee #1', Lidia Morawska, 24 Jul 2018
RC2: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Jul 2018
- AC2: 'Response to Referee #2', Lidia Morawska, 24 Jul 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (26 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Jul 2018) by Pierre Herckes

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (30 Jul 2018)

ED: Publish as is (14 Aug 2018) by Pierre Herckes

Short summary

It is important to correctly interpret the readings reported by low cost airborne particle sensors at high humidity. We demonstrate that deliquescent growth of particles and the formation of fog droplets in the atmosphere can lead to significant increases in particle number and mass concentrations reported by such sensors, unless they are fitted with dryers at the inlet. This is important as air quality standards for particles are specifically limited to solid particles.