Light absorption by airborne aerosols: comparison of integrating plate and spectrophone techniques.

An excellent correlation between the integrating plate (IP) and the photoacoustic methods for measuring aerosol light absorption has been found for airborne graphitic carbon in diesel vehicle exhaust. However, the regression coefficient depends on the orientation of the Teflon membrane filter during the IP analysis. With the collected particulates between the filter and the integrating plate, the IP response is 1.85 times that for the filter reversed. In either case the response ratio of the IP method to the photoacoustic method is >1.0, i.e., 2.43 vs 1.30. The IP calibration is also probably dependent on the nature of the filter medium.