In breaking news, on October 14, 2024 the Council of the European Union formally updated the air quality standards across the European Union. The updated directive emphasizes the health of EU citizens by establishing new air quality standards for pollutants to be achieved by 2030, aligning more closely with WHO (World Health Organization) guidelines. These pollutants include particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide, all of which are linked to respiratory issues.
In this latest 164 page directive, the document now includes the requirement to measure ultra-fine particles.
“It is important that pollutants of emerging concern, such as ultrafine particles, black carbon and elemental carbon, as well as ammonia and the oxidative potential of particulate matter, be measured at monitoring supersites at both rural background locations and urban background locations in order to support scientific understanding of their effects on human health and the environment, as recommended by the WHO. For Member States whose km2 territory is less than 10 000 measuring at monitoring supersites at urban background locations would be sufficient”
On page 31 of this directive, the document goes on to define ultra-fine particles as:
- Less than or equal to 100nm
- With a lower limit of 10nm
- With the particle number concentration being displayed as particles per cubic centimeter.
“ultrafine particles’ or ‘UFP’ means particles with a diameter less than or equal to 100nm, where UFP are measured as the particle number concentrations per cubic centimeter for a size range with a lower limit of 10nm and for a size range with no restriction on the upper limit”
The potential health affects associated with ultra-fine particle exposure have been widely discussed and publicized for many years now. The WHO has videos on the subject and the internet is full of publications and studies on ultra-fine particle exposure and the potential health impact on humans.
The technology used to measure ultra-fine particles, below 100nm and down to 10nm or thereabouts differs from the technology used in traditional optical particle counters, photometers and related dust / particle monitoring instruments commonly found across the industry. It’s traditionally been much more expensive and required ongoing maintenance and or consumables.
Fortunately, technology has been evolving behind the scenes and a select number of global manufacturers have been developing lower cost, less maintenance intensive ultra-fine particle monitoring systems and sensors. Some of these companies offer products which are closely aligned with the requirements under this new EU directive and Alpha Scientific is closely aligned with and exclusively represents a number of these world renowned particle instrument manufacturers.
Some organizations throughout Australia and New Zealand already monitor ultra-fine particles along with dust and other pollutants on their sites however the vast majority of organizations don’t as there are no regulatory requirements to do so. With the release of this new EU directive, this may bring some welcome change to industry here.
For more information, feel free to contact Alpha Scientific in Melbourne on (03) 9124 9886 or email sales@alphascientific.com.au