The Aethalometer provides real-time monitoring, quantitation and speciation of Black Carbon (BC) aerosols.

The principle of the aethalometer is to measure at given time intervals the attenuation of a light beam (at 880 nm) transmitted through a filter where the particulate is continuously collected; the rate of change of optical transmission combined with the air flow rate monitored through a mass flowmeter permits to determine the absorption coefficient, then converted into BC concentration by means of the mass-absorption cross sectionThe filter tape advances on a time schedule, or when a pre-set loading limit is reached. The instrument operates completely automatically from power-up, and provides continuous real-time data with no operator attention.