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In the last decade, many low-cost monitoring sensors and sensor-networks have been used as an alternative air quality assessment method. It is also well known that these low cost monitors have calibration, accuracy and long term variation problems which require various calibration techniques. In this work PM2.5 and PM10 low cost sensors (Plantower and Nova Fitness) have been tested in five cities under different environmental conditions and compared with collocated standard instruments. Simultaneously, particle composition (organic and black carbon, sulfate, nitrate, chloride, ammonium, and chemical elements) has been measured in the same places to study its influence on the accuracy. The results show a very large variability in the correlation between the low cost sensors and collocated standard instruments depending on the composition and size of particles present in the site. The PM10 correlation coefficient (R2) between the low cost sensor and a collocated regulatory instrument varied from to 0.95 in Temuco to 0.04 in Los Caleos. PM2.5 correlation varied from 0.97 to 0.68 in the same places. It was found that sites that had higher proportion of large particles had lower correlation between the low cost sensor and the regulatory instrument. Sites that had higher relative concentration of organic and black carbon had better correlation because these species are mostly below the 1 μm size range. Sites that had higher sulfate, nitrate or SiO2 concentrations in PM2.5 or PM10 had low correlation most likely because these particles have a scattering coefficients that depends on its size or composition, thus they can be classified incorrectly.

Despite reduction efforts, the concentration of PM 2.5 (particulate matter ≤ 2.5 µm in diameter) has remained steady or even grown slightly in Santiago, Chile, over the last few years. However, this potential increase may be due to the formation of secondary particles rather than a rise in primary emissions. Therefore, this study measured the size distribution of particulate matter with an Electrical Low Pressure Impactor (ELPI; Dekati) to investigate the generation of secondary ultrafine particles at several sites in this metropolitan area during 2013 and 2018. Little formation was detected during winter, but more activity was observed during fall, and the highest generation of these particles was found during summer, when the number of new particles between 10 and 20 nm in diameter displayed an obvious peak in the afternoon during periods of high solar radiation. Overall, no clear relationship was discerned between the secondary particle number and the UV radiation until the latter exceeded ~4.5 kJ m -2 , when an almost linear correlation (R 2 = 0.739) appeared. Additionally, the particle number exhibited a much lower correlation with the total solar energy, indicating that UV solar radiation plays the major role in ultrafine particle formation. However, these trends may only apply to polluted cities, which already contain elevated particulate matter concentrations. Also, the fact that secondary formation primarily occurs in Santiago during summer, when the PM 2.5 level is low, confirms that large numbers of pre-existing particles inhibit the creation of new ones.