Comparison of commonly used samplers with a novel bioaerosol sampler with automatic plate exchange

A newly designed automatic bioaerosol sampler (ABS) was commissioned for studies of microbial bioaerosols. The original feature of the ABS is the facility for unattended, microprocessor-controlled sampling with automatic replacement of the agar Petri dishes after each sample. The ABS was compared with a six-stage Andersen sampler, an all-glass impinger and a Casella slit sampler. The air in two cattle and two poultry livestock buildings was sampled for the concentration of total bacteria and total fungi including yeast cells. Slightly smaller concentrations of total bacteria and total fungi were measured with the automatic bioaerosol sampler than with the reference samplers. The automatic bioaerosol sampler correlated best with the Andersen sampler and its cutoff diameter was estimated to be about 1.5 μm. Overall, this new sampler was found to be a useful development in the technology of sampling airborne microbes.