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In its new air quality guidelines, the WHO advises that measurements of black carbon and ultrafine particles should be made.
After more than 15 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) presented their new air quality guidelines on the 22nd of September.
The updated air quality guidelines were developed in light of current scientific evidence on the health effects of conventional pollutants, including particulate matter (PM2,5 and PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO).
For the first time, the guidelines also recommend best practices for dealing with certain types of particulate matter – e.g., soot or black carbon (BC) and ultrafine particles (UFP). For these substances, the current state of knowledge is not yet sufficient to be able to set concrete limit values. However, the WHO urgently appeals to all state and local authorities to carry out measurements.
Although the guidelines are merely recommendations, the EU Parliament already called for the outdated limit values to be revised in line with the WHO. The EU wants to decide on this by the 3rd quarter of 2022.
The Umweltbundesamt (German Federal Environment Agency) also welcomes the new WHO guidelines. In cooperation with other medical, scientific and public health societies and institutions, it has published a statement (German) emphasizing that a guideline update was overdue in view of the numerous new scientific findings and points to the significant health effects that can occur even at low pollutant concentrations.
Our black carbon and particle monitors are therefore in greater demand than ever.
In its guidelines, the WHO particularly highlights the Aethalometer® from Magee Scientific as a proven standard for the continuous measurement of soot (black carbon) (pp. 147 – 148).
This instruments comes with the patented DualSpot™ technology, which offers two special advantages: First, the compensation of aerosol loading effects at the sampling point and second, additional important information on aerosol composition. The analysis is performed on 7 optical wavelengths, with a broad spectrum ranging from infrared (IR, 950 nm) to ultraviolet (UV, 370 nm), at 1 Hz measurement frequency.
Are you interested in our measuring instruments or do you have further questions? Contact us!