Air Quality and Environmental Applications

Power Plants • Counter-Terrorism • Agriculture and Livestock

Many applications require the collection and analysis of aerosol particles, including counter-terrorism, epidemiology, medicine, and agriculture. These applications typically involve the monitoring or collection of airborne plant, animal or human pathogens. But aerosol sample analysis is frequently plagued by three problems:

• The targeted pathogen is present at a very low concentration;
• The collection process involves too small an air sample to be statistically valid; and/or
• Available bioassay methods are not sensitive enough.

A concentrator solves these problems by processing large volumes of ambient air, and continuously transferring particulates from this primary air stream to a much smaller secondary airflow. As a result, the secondary flow can reach aerosol concentrations that are 4X to 15X higher than present in the incoming air. The concentrator therefore amplifies the ambient aerosol concentration, while retaining most of the particles that were present in the incoming airflow in the secondary flow.

SASS 4000 High-Volume Aerosol Concentrator

Research International’s SASS 4000 High-Volume Aerosol concentrator is useful whenever the targeted particulates are present at ultra-low concentrations, and shows good concentration efficiencies down to sub-micron particle sizes for aerosols of all types, whether they are biological, organic, or inorganic in nature.

Visit the SASS 4000 Aerosol Concentrator page.

SASS 4100 Two-Stage Collector

The SASS 4100 is a two-stage filter-based aerosol collection device that processes over 3500 liters/minute of ambient air that is continuously sampled as a primary air stream. Particulates in this air stream are transferred to a much smaller secondary air stream using centrifugal and virtual impaction principles.

Particles are then routed to an electret filter element (the same filter used in Research International’s SASS 3100 dry collector) for collection, and the secondary air, stripped of particulates, is exhausted along with the primary air. The collector has only one moving part- the primary air mover. This two-stage aerosol collection method provides sampling rates that are 10X higher than other portable devices, with less than 100 watts of input electrical power.

Visit the SASS 4100 Two-Stage Collector page