Environmental application of pulsed laser-induced incandescence

A portable instrument based on two-color laser-induced incandescence (LII) technique has been designed and developed for the detection of carbonaceous particles for environmental applications. The instrument has been calibrated by performing LII measurements at the exhaust of a home-made soot generator. The incandescence signal from particles sampled into the instrument has been compared with in situ, calibrated, LII measurements to correlate the incandescence signal by the instrument with particles concentration. Measurements of particulate with the LII instrument were then conducted in different environmental conditions, covering a wide range of concentration (from ambient air to cars’ exhaust). The detection limit of the LII instrument has been estimated to be in the range of 200 ng/m3. These measurements have been also compared with results obtained with a commercial aethalometer. The results show a linear relationship between the two sets of measurements, also in the case where significant variation of the carbon particles concentration has been observed over time. These observations allow us to infer that the two instruments are responding in the same way to different carbon particles load, size and nature.