The main goal of this investigation is to extend the data on particulate and condensable vapor emissions from commonly used commercial kitchen appliances and food products that were previously documented in the ASHRAE 745-RP final report dated February 9, 1999 (Gerstler 1999). As with the previous study, appropriate food products were selected for each appliance to provide significant grease emissions and to be in accordance with corresponding ASTM test protocol requirements. The main particle sampling instrument, the personal cascade impactor, and the same grease vapor sampling instrument, the EPA Method 5 were used in this study so the results could be directly compared with the results obtained in ASHRAE 745-RP.

A second objective is to develop an alternative to EPA Method 5 to quantify the condensable grease portion of cooking effluent. Limitations to Method 5 include the necessity to cook large amounts of food to obtain reliable statistically significant mass amounts for some appliances. Another drawback is the time required to completely evaporate the solvent, typically several days, before the weight measurement can be made. Thus the success or failure of a test cannot be completely determined until several days afterwards. The present team had performed some preliminary work on an alternative method that used a vibrating crystal to detect minute amounts of deposited mass. This approach has been used successfully to determine aerosol mass concentration. By cooling the crystal and impinging a vapor-laden air stream, it was predicted that this technology could be used to measure condensable vapor concentration in essentially real time and with much better precision than the Method 5 configuration. A prototype of this device was constructed and operated in parallel with the method 5 system to determine the feasibility of using this alternative approach.

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