King's will be improving the filter archive that has been successfully established in recent years. This archive was put in place as part of two studies for the Health Effects Institute, which examined the toxicity of PM10 and PM2.5 on TEOM and FDMS microbalance filters in relation to the Congestion Charging Scheme and the London Low Emission Zone. These studies demonstrated the effectiveness of the toxicity analysis on these filters; the results are due to be published soon.

Through these studies we have learnt valuable lessons regarding the practicalities of changing and storing filters, managing an archive and the importance of maintaining a high quality archive for future studies. We would therefore like to collect and store all available TEOM and FDMS microbalance filters from sites in the LAQN and improve the quality of the collection and storage of these filters. We will be working in collaboration with local authority site operators to expand the filter archive in this way, we are establishing a resource for future health and particulate research studies.

Item date 04/11/2008