ÖNORM EN 12341

the rnonitoring within the framework of the European Union Council Directive 96/62/EC [Io]n ambient air quality assessment and rnanagement, and the first daughter diredive. In the daughter directive, by convention the ISO thoracic sampling mnvention has been assimilated to the PM 10 fraction (see annex A; [2]). The standard specifies a test protocol for comparing the results of a candidate PM10 sampler with a reference PM10 one in a field test 131. Basically, the reference equivalence awarded to a candidate sampler applies only to the range of conditions under which the field tests were camed out. By carrying out the ambient field test in charactenstic situations covering a wide range of relevant ambient parameters it is secured that reference equivalence does hold in prevailing conditions within European countries. Reference equivalence will explicitly not be awarded for specific situations (e.g. background only or urban situations only). Above all, the procedure given in this standard is thought to be a practical one, enabling European institutiions or industries to assess candidate sampling systems under ambient conditions. The reference equivalence awarded using the procedures given in this standard, only applies to the process of sampling SPM in ambient air. It does not deal with the equivalence of commonly employed automated methods (e.g. attenuation of &-radiation or the oscillating mass balance method) to analyse the ambient SPM mlleded on the collection substrate. The limit of detecöon and the precision of the analytical method are important mnsideraüons for the User, but their detetmination is outside the scope of this standard. i The main arguments for the designated field test procedure are elucidated in D.1.