Aerosol Measurements Before and During Combustion of Various Pellets from Spruce Sawdust and Face Masks FFP2

¹ Research centre, University of Žilina, Univerzitna 1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovakia
² Department of Power Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Žilina, Univerzitna 1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovakia

^* Corresponding author: nikola.cajovakantova@uniza.sk

Abstract

Aerosols in the atmosphere affect our health and quality of life. The most commonly measured property is their mass concentration. In this work was measured the mass concentration of aerosols by optical particle sizer in the range from 0.3 μm to 10 μm. It was realized in the laboratory with an automatic heat source for pellet combustion. Aerosols were firstly measured before the combustion process, then during combustion of three types of samples: pellets from pure sawdust, pellets from 5 % of disintegrated face masks FFP2 blended with spruce sawdust and from10 % of disintegrated face masks FFP2 blended with spruce sawdust. The lowest total mass concentration was measured during the combustion of pellets from pure spruce sawdust. However, results indicate that the combustion process does not have an impact on aerosol mass concentration in the laboratory space for the particle range 0.3-10 μm when an automatic heat source for pellets is used.