An Overview of the Automated and On-Line Systems to Assess the Oxidative Potential of Particulate Matter

Abstract

Recent years have seen a significant increase in the scientific literature related to various methods for analyzing oxidative potential (OP) of atmospheric particulate matter (PM). The presence of several types of PM, differing chemical and physical properties, released by both anthropogenic and natural sources, leads to numerous health issues in living organisms and represents an attractive target for air quality monitoring. Therefore, several studies have focused on developing rapid and self-operative tests, employing different target molecules to assess OP of atmospheric aerosols as well as unique approaches to overcome some of the most common laboratory-related issues in this kind of analysis. This work provides an overview of online and automated systems, as well as a broad picture of the state-of-art of the various devices and methods developed on this topic over the last two decades. Moreover, representative studies on this subject will be discussed, analyzing the advantages and drawbacks of the developed automated techniques.