Description
A common drawback of state-of-the-art aerosol analysers is that they remove the aerosol particles from their original environment. Thereby, nanoparticles canget modified (e.g. by evaporation) or get lost (e.g. by wall collisions inside the instrument), which may affect the measured size distribution and concentration. An in-situ measurement technique can overcome these shortcomings of the conventional aerosol instruments. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), commonly used in material science or in biochemical process analysis, can fill this gap. It is capable measuring in-situ particle structure and size in the nanometre range.
Here we report in-situ SAXS measurements of aerosol nanoparticles with volume fractions as low as ~10 . To provide a representative environment for
aerosols a flow tube was operated at ambient pressure and concentrations of about 10 cm . This permitted the parallel sampling by conventional aerosol
instruments like CPC and DMPS system. To complete the picture, electron microscopy images were taken from aerosol samples. We conclude that in-situ
nanoparticle characterization with ultra-low volume fractions is feasible with SAXS enabling valuable insights on the morphology (e.g. fractal dimension) and size of the nanoparticles.
| Period | 29 Aug 2019 |
|---|---|
| Event title | European Aerosol Conference 2019 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Göteborg, SwedenShow on map |