DustScanAQ is one of very few UK companies dedicated solely to dust measurement, with over 20 years’ experience in the field.
Since the rapid growth in Low-Cost Sensors carrying MCERTS Indicative certification for PM10, we have found that a number of these instruments – commonly costing several thousand pounds – can significantly under-read PM10 in high-dust environments. This typically happens because optical sensors are calibrated against fine urban/ambient aerosol, not the coarser particle sizes and higher concentrations found at fenceline locations on quarries and at construction/industrial/waste sites and potentially impacting nearby receptors.
The risk this creates is practical rather than theoretical. If your monitoring under-reads dust levels, you may believe – wrongly – that you are operating within permit or nuisance limits, when in fact you are not. That can leave you unable to demonstrate control of emissions, and exposed to enforcement action, even where the failure was unintentional and caused by the instrument rather than the operation itself.
For consultants within the IAQM and IES, specifying or relying on a sensor that isn’t fit for purpose in a given environment will be in breach of the Institute’s requirement that members ‘have full regard for the public interest at all times’.
We evaluate low-cost and indicative sensors by co-locating them at a quarry site where the dust sources and concentration ranges are well characterised. This lets us assess how any given sensor actually performs against real, high-concentration dust sources, and not just against the conditions used for its original calibration and certification.
If you’d like advice on a monitoring solution suited to your site, or an independent field evaluation of an instrument you’re using or considering, please get in touch.
We will talk to you in confidence about the monitoring solution in question, if you are in a situation where you are not sure whether you are in compliance or not. We are experienced in advising clients on ‘best practicable means’ and getting measurement fleets into compliance.