Title
Quantification of Elemental and Organic Carbon in Atmospheric Particulate Matter Using Color Space Sensing—Hue, Saturation, and Value (HSV) Coordinates
Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Biological Sciences
Publication Date
4-1-2016
Abstract
A fast and cost effective application of color sensing was used to quantify color coordinates of atmospheric particulate matter collected on filters to quantify elemental and organic carbon (EC/OC) loading. This is a unique and novel approach for estimating OC composition. The method used a colorimeter and digital photography to obtain XYZ color space values and mathematically transformed them to HSV cylindrical-coordinates; a quantification method was applied to estimate the NIOSH and IMPROVE (TOR) EC/OC loadings from a set of globally diverse PM samples. When applied to 315 samples collected at three US EPA Chemical Speciation Network (CSN) sampling sites, the HSV model proved to be a robust method for EC measurement with an R2 = 0.917 for predicted versus measured loading results and a CV(RMSE) = 16.1%. The OC quantified from the same sample filters had an R2 = 0.671 and a CV(RMSE) = 24.8% between the predicted and measured results. The method was applied to NIOSH EC/OC results from a set of samples from rural China, Bagdad, and the San Joaquin Valley, CA, and the EC and OC CV(RMSE) were 30.8% and 49.3%, respectively. Additionally, the method was applied to samples with color quantified by a digital photographic image (DPI) with EC results showing good agreement with a CV(RMSE) of 22.6%. OC concentrations were not captured as accurately with the DPI method, with a CV(RMSE) of 77.5%. The method's low analytical cost makes it a valuable tool for estimating EC/OC exposure in developing regions and for large scale monitoring campaigns.
Recommended Citation
Olson, M.R. et al. (2016). Quantification of elemental and organic carbon in atmospheric particulate matter using color space sensing—hue, saturation, and value (HSV) coordinates. Science of The Total Environment 548-549, 252-259. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.01.032
Journal
Science of The Total Environment
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Comments
This article was originally published in Science of The Total Environment. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.
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