[Stoves] personal pollution monitors (Andrew)

[Andrew Heggie]

On 23 December 2016 at 21:27, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:
> Many years back I was using the filter papers I mentioned to measure
> ‘asbestos’.
> I counted any fiber I saw that was at least 2.5um long and had a diameter
> less the a fifth of the length (it was a long time ago and these values may
> be wrong). Any fiber. Could be legs from a bed bug for all I know. But
> calling them asbestos caused a lot of excitement. So it was fun! And I
> followed the procedure. So what do these measurements mean? It was
> interesting seeing all the other stuff collected on the filter. All colors
> and shapes. I think it could be used to fine tune the particle reading to
> measure what most likely is carbon. Perhaps get a total from a different
> method and this used to establish a percentage of that total being from
> smoke. Research needed.

Yes it would be interesting to know the importance of these other
particulates compared with "black carbon", the fines I collected from
the cyclonic separators of boiler flues were mostly silica I guess ,
this "flyash" was considered hazardous but no great care was taken to
dispose of it.

We know asbestos fibres are dangerous because of their length to with
ratio being such that white blood cells cannot engulf them but plain
old silica (50% of wood ash) is attributed to many a miner's early
demise.

Andrew