Sunset Laboratory B.V. was awarded a MIT Feasibility Study subsidy by the Noord-Holland province of The Netherlands (MKB innovatiestimulering topsectoren (MIT) – Haalbaarheidsproject 2022), to investigate the feasibility of the proposed project “Development of a real-time carbonaceous aerosol analyser”.
Carbonaceous aerosol accounts for an important and complex fraction of air pollution, and while dense urban areas are usually the focus regarding health concerns of exposed population, carbonaceous aerosol has worldwide impact, including in climate due to radiative forcing. Adequate and widespread monitoring of carbonaceous aerosol is essential to identity and control emission sources, reduce climate and health effects and expand our understanding of the role of such pollutants in the global atmosphere and specific micro-environments.
Sunset Laboratory has vast experience as pioneer of the well stablished and worldwide standard thermal-optical analysis method and world leader in true Organic and Elemental Carbon (OCEC) analysis instrumentation, able to quantitatively analyse carbonaceous compounds based on their actual chemical properties.
The project aims to explore technologies that may enable real-time measurements of Organic and Elemental carbon fractions, in a more deployable form, that may be used to complement the data from fixed monitoring stations and expand the spatial coverage of OCEC measurements worldwide. The feasibility study assesses available technology, published literature, economic and technological opportunities and challenges of the proposed innovation. If found promising, a prototyping and development phase may follow.
