DEVELOPMENT OF AN ATMOSPHERIC DUST PARTICLE SIZES AND DENSITY INSTRUMENT WITH OTHER RELATED WEATHER PARAMETERS

Abstract

The research work developed a measuring device to determine the dust particle size and density with some atmospheric weather parameters (temperature and relative humidity). The dust particle size also refer to as particulate matter (PM) was subdivided into three: the dust particle of less than 1um in diameter is PM1.0 μm, any dust particle between 1 μm to 2.5 μm in diameter is referred to as PM2.5 μm and any dust particle greater than 2.5 μm and less than 10 μm in diameter is referred to PM10 μm. The dust instrument developed consist of a dust particle size and density sensor, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, real time clock, storage medium shield, intelligent display and a microcontroller. The dust sensor (SEN0177) utilizes the light scattering and digital Fourier analysis to determine the particle size and density levels, temperature sensor (BMP180) and relative humidity sensor (HIH-4030) were used to measure the temperature and relative humidity of the environment. The sensors were linked to arduino mega 2560 using arduino platform C program for the proper communication with all devices. Each sensor has standard output and the measured output was compared with available instruments. The correlations of dust sensor, temperature sensor, relative humidity are 0.97, 0.99 and 0.92 respectively. Dust sizes and density has measuring range > 0.3 μm to < 10 μm with density of 0.0 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 to 512 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 and resolution of 1 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3, temperature of 0.01 ℃ and 0.001 % of relative humidity. When used to measure particulate sizes and density at different location, the PM1.0 μm measured were in range of 20 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 to 41 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3, PM2.5 μm measured were in range of 35 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 to 89 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 and PM10 μm measured were in range of 40 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 to 150 𝜇𝑔/𝑚3 at temperature range of 25.3 ℃ and 35.8 ℃ and relative humidity ranges from 55.08 % from 87.24 %. This shows that Nigeria environment is not free from dust and maybe responsible for various disease associated with the populace.