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Hygroscopicity of aerosol particles at low temperatures. 2. Theoretical and experimental hygroscopic properties of laboratory generated aerosols.
Journal article

Hygroscopicity of aerosol particles at low temperatures. 2. Theoretical and experimental hygroscopic properties of laboratory generated aerosols.

  • 2002-01-29
Published in:
  • Environmental science & technology. - 2002
Adsorption
Aerosols
Air Pollutants
Calibration
Crystallization
Environmental Monitoring
Particle Size
Temperature
English A Hygroscopicity Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (H-TDMA) system has been used to measure hygroscopic growth curves and deliquescence relative humidities (DRH) of laboratory generated (NH4)2SO4, NaCl, and NaNO3 particles at temperatures T= 20 degrees C and -10 degrees C. Good agreement (better than 3.5%) between measured growth curves and Köhler theory was found using empirical temperature and concentration dependent values for water activity, solution density, and surface tension. The measured growth curves only experience a small temperature dependence in the observed temperature range. Therefore, to a first approximation, it is possible to neglect the temperature dependence of the water activity for theoretical calculations in the temperature range -10 degrees C < T < 25 degrees C. The small differences between experiment and theory, which were predominantly observed for NaCl particles, are probably caused by a small amount of water adsorbed on the "dry" crystals. It was also observed that these particles experience a significant restructuring at relative humidity RH < DRH, which was also taken into account for a comparison with theoretical curves. If salt particles are used for instrument calibration, precautions regarding the dry particle diameter have to be taken.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.rero.ch/global/documents/291241
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