Wearable Resonator-Based Respirable Dust Monitor for Underground Coal Mines

Exposure to respirable coal dust and diesel exhaust in underground coal mines can cause detrimental airway diseases such as coal worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP), silicosis, and lung cancer. In this article, we present the design, fabrication, and experimental evaluation of a low-cost wearable respirable dust monitor (WEARDM) that uses a dual-resonator gravimetric sensing approach for real-time measurement of respirable airborne particulate matter (PM) concentrations. The sensor selects for the ISO-respirable dust fraction using a miniature virtual impactor (VI) and removes moisture from the collected dust to ensure accurate mass measurement. WEARDM uses a novel dual-resonator mass sensor (DRMS) that is composed of a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and a film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). The QCM measures the mass concentration of particles generated from coal mining operations [typically >2.5- $mu text{m}$ aerodynamic diameter (AD)], separated using inertial impaction. Thermophoretic precipitation is used to deposit the fine and ultrafine particles, such as those emitted from diesel sources [typically $ < 0.1~mu text{m}$ AD) on FBAR. This allows the WEARDM system to maintain a large dynamic range and uniform collection efficiency (CE) across the entire respirable fraction. The WEARDM system is optimized for a low flow rate of 250 mL/min which results in low power usage and a small form factor and is an order of magnitude smaller and less expensive than currently available devices.