Assessment of Atmospheric PM_2.5 and PCDD/Fs Collected by Different High-volume Ambient Air Sampling Systems

To evaluate the difference in hazardous air pollutants in PM2.5 between reference method (National Institute of Environmental Analysis; NIEA A205) and high-volume air sampler (European standard:EN14907 and Japan method), we set up a sampling station on the campus of National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University, northern Taiwan, during 2014–2015. Both vapor and solid phases of dioxins were collected using high-volume samplers, according to EN14907 and Japan method. The flow rate was set at 500 L min^–1 and 1000 L min^–1, respectively. To compare the difference with the high-volume air sampler, we simultaneously used the reference air sampler based on Taiwan NIEA A205.11C, at the flow rate of 16.7 L min^–1 (BGI PQ200-FRM). The mass concentrations of PM2.5 measured with NIEA A205, EN14907, and Japan method were 20.2 ± 8.79, 25.4 ± 10.5 and 28.6 ± 13.9 µg m^–3, respectively. The difference of the mass concentration of PM2.5 obtained from two different methods was lower than 3.9%. Moreover, the concentrations of PCDD/F between solid and vapor phases were 56.9–1,090 and 38.6–67.1 fg m^–3 via EN14907 and 51.1–1,150 and 18.4–81.8 fg m^–3 via Japan method, respectively. Obviously, there is no significant difference between these two samplers. Compared to the method of NIEA, high volume air sampling method not only provided equivalently good quality data but offer a higher sample quantity for analyzing the trace level chemical component of hazardous air pollutants and the toxicity in different areas.