Hollow-fiber flow/hyperlayer field-flow fractionation for the size characterization of airborne particle fractions obtained by SPLITT fractionation

Hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation (HF FIFFF) was applied for the separation and size characterization of airborne particles which were collected in a municipal area and prefractionated into four different-diameter intervals >5.0, 2.5-5.0, 1.5-2.5, <1.5 μm) by continuous split-flow thin (SPLITT) fractionation. Experiments demonstrated the possibility of utilizing a hollow-fiber module for the high-performance separation of supramicron-sized airborne particles at steric/hyperlayer operating mode of HF FIFFF. Eluting particles during HF FIFFF separation were collected at short time intervals (∼10 s) for the microscopic examination. It showed that particle size and size distributions of all SPLITT fractions of airborne particles can be readily obtained using a calibration and that HF FIFFF can be utilized for the size confirmation of the sorted particle fraction during SPLITT fractionation.