Aerosol Instrumentation in Occupational Hygiene: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

Occupational hygiene has always been very influential in aerosol science—and vice versa. This paper gives an historical overview of this interaction, in particular how aerosol measurement instrumentation has evolved for the measurement of workers' exposures to aerosols in the occupational setting. It shows how health-related criteria for aerosol measurement have shifted from ones based on airborne particulate mass to ones based on particle count concentration, and then back again, depending on the aerosol science knowledge that was available at the time. It also draws the distinction between instrumentation based on time weighted-average sampling and direct-reading measurement, and the factors that govern how the choice of type of measuring instrument was made in the past, the way it is made now, and the way it might be made in the future.