Adverse health effects caused by exposure to airborne particles have been detected in recent years, however there is little knowledge about exposure to ultrafine particles with a diameter <100 nm. In this study, particle number concentration and size distribution in a range of particle diameters from 10 nm to 10 µm were determined during oak wood sanding. A hand-held orbit sander in combination with three types of grit size (P60, 120 and 240) of sandpaper were used. Measurements were obtained using a portable particle size distribution analyzer and an optical particle size spectrometer, carried out at 15-min intervals for each treatment by static sampling in the breathing zone. We also compared the optical particle size spectrometer to the aerosol monitor in order to evaluate the mass concentration of airborne particles in the range of 1 to 10 µm in diameter. Sanding paper with the finest grit, P240, showed a significantly higher number concentration of ultrafine particles, compared with P60 and P120 grits. The differences among particular grit size were statistically significant for microparticles. The size distribution of particles during sanding was not affected by grit size. For each grit size, apparent peak values of ultrafine and microparticle number concentrations were determined at approximately 15 nm, and 0.1 µm, respectively. Optical particle size spectrometer and aerosol monitor showed comparable results of mass concentration for the respirable fraction.

The paper is devoted the standard CEN/TS 16976 described a standardized measuring method with number concentration of UFP. As well as, described TSI 3750-CEN CPC which meet all of these requirements.

Currently the main pollution comes from the anthropogenic sources related to residential heating and combustion. Most of the emitted particles from this sources are in the mode below 1 μm. Therefore, only by using methods based on the electric mobility separation and size enhancement we can measure the size and concentration of this particles from nano to ultrafine sizes. This contribution describes the most recent methods how to study particle size and concentration of the particles coming from combustion sources.