Typical indoor concentrations and emission rates of particulate matter at building level: A case study to setup a measuring strategy for pig fattening facilities

The objective was to collect a large dataset on both indoor concentrations and emission rates of particulate matter (PM), make a detailed analysis of the temporal and spatial variations of PM, and thereby develop a measuring strategy for pig fattening facilities. Different PM fractions ranging from 0.25 to 32 mu m were sampled continuously together with environmental parameters (i.e., temperature and relative humidity). Sampling position (19 locations) within the compartment showed a significant effect on PM concentration, but this was small compared to the effect of the daily variations and the variation over the whole fattening period. The contribution of location to the variance of indoor PM concentrations was 6, 4 and 12% for PM1, PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. The effect of daily variation contributed 29, 65 and 58% to the concentration variance, while the effect of variation over the fattening period was 65, 31 and 31% for PM1, PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. Based on these conclusions, a measuring strategy for pig fattening facilities is proposed. For one fattening period, the strategy consists of 4 to 5 specific sampling periods of 48 h. This measuring strategy offers the possibility to shorten the total sampling time significantly and to reduce the number of measurements without loss of important PM concentration characteristics (e.g., daily peak concentrations and emission factors). This strategy also allows a reconstruction of the evolution of PM concentrations over the entire fattening period. (C) 2011 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.