Abstract
Since the availability of low-cost monitors, researchers have investigated possible correlations with low-cost PM monitors and respective well referenced high-cost monitors. In the present study two low cost instruments were used to examine the air quality. A Dylos DC1700 (a low-cost equipment), and a Speck ( Specksensor). Dylos monitors the particle number concentrations in two sizes, larger than 0.5 μm (hereinafter called small size) and larger than 2.5 μm (hereinafter called larger size). Speck provides PM2.5 mass concertation. A DustTrak DRX Model, TSI, USA was employed to measure PM mass concentrations (PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10, Total particles). We have evaluated Dylos and Speck againt Dusttrak DRX individually for different indoor and outdoor sources. Three PM sources including mixed grilling (ground beef meat), construction particles, and outdoor PM in a rural area, Borovoye, Kazakhstan, and smoking particles at Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus were examined to evaluated the performance of Dylos against Dusttrak. For Mixed Grilling and Construction source, the correlation coefficient values for fine and coarse fractions were found to be 0.61 and 0.66, respectively. This moderate correlation could be due to the presence of significant amount of coarse size particles that can be detected by Dylos. Combining all smoking data, poor correlation values for fine (R2 = 0.17) and coarse (R2 = 0.20) particles were obtained. Poor correlation coefficient values were observed for both fine (4×10-5) and coarse (6.1×10-3) particles during the monitoring of outdoor PM in Borovoye. Speck was compared with Dusttrak DRX for commuting PM in Astana city. We are now analyzing the data. For ISES 2018, we are aimed to evaluate the performance of these two low-cost PM monitors against DustTrak DRX by running the monitors in Tehran, Iran for three weeks during May 2018 and in Astana, Kazakhstan for 8 weeks during June-August 2018.