For the purpose of harmonising particulate matter (PM) measurement methods, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the AQUILA Network of National Air Quality Reference Laboratories have organised so far three PM quality assurance/quality control campaign in Europe.
1) From 2006 until 2009, 18 measurement campaigns were carried out in European Member States, whereby the JRC mobile laboratory carried out measurements in parallel with the Member States' National Reference Laboratories and routine monitoring networks. For the purpose of the campaign, the JRC mobile PM laboratory was equipped with reference samplers for PM10, PM2.5, PM1, an optical particle counter, a continuous PM10 instrument and a semi-continuous elemental and organic carbon analyser. First results on the comparability of PM measurements indicate that a considerable percentage of the participating laboratories and network measurements do not comply with the quality objectives required by legislation.
2) The second intercomparison exercise for PM2.5 and PM10 has been organised from 13 February to 9 April 2015 at the JRC in Ispra, invoving a total of 46 samplers for PM.
3) The third intercomparison exercise took place in Ispra from January to March 2018, involving more than 50 reference methods for PM2.5 and PM10 measurements from the various Member States and Candidate Countries. The report with the results will be published soon.