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Current issue: Volume 22, No. 1 (2022)
Šaulienė I., Vatkevičius L., Daunys G., Valiulis G., Šukienė L. 2022. Assessment of fog influence on augmentation of fluorescent particles in real-time bioaerosol measurement. Acta Biol. Univ. Daugavp., 22 (1): 1 – 18.
Abstract
Bioaerosol is composed of biological origin particles dispersed in the air. They differ from airborne particles of non-biological origin in their ability to fluoresce. This biochemical property has been included into current detectors that operate in an autonomous mode and use laser-induced fluorescence to accurately identify biological particles. The challenging issue was observed on days with high air humidity and notably during fog. Monitoring data showed that during the fog, there are large numbers of fluorescent particles, potentially of biological origin, which occurrence is not explained. This study aimed to find out whether the raised number of fluorescent particles during fog impacts airborne pollen identification and describe the possible causes of the higher number of fluorescent particles during fog. Data from 2019 atmospheric observations were acquired with a fully automated Rapid-E detector in Lithuania for the study. The characteristics of each particle consisted of morphology data gathered using light scattering and data on biochemical properties collected using laser-induced fluorescence and fluorescence lifetime. The study concentrated on occasions in which extremely high numbers of fluorescent particles were detected in during fog. Our findings show that a large part of the fluorescent aerosol during fog is not pollen. The fluorescent traces of airborne particles refers that the fog creates specific conditions, and airborne particles identification may be compromised if scenarios are not integrated into bioaerosol particle recognition algorithms.
Keywords: bioaerosol, airborne pollen, laser-induced fluorescence, automatic airborne particles measurements
*Corresponding author: Ingrida Šaulienė. Vilnius University, Šiauliai Academy, Vytauto Str. 84, Šiauliai, LT-76352, Lithuania, E-mail: ingrida.sauliene@sa.vu.lt
Lukas Vaitkevičius, Gintautas Daunys, Gediminas Valiulis, Laura Šukienė. Vilnius University,
Šiauliai Academy, Vytauto Str. 84, Šiauliai, LT-76352, Lithuania
