Simultaneous In-Situ Measurement of Local Particle Size, Particle Concentration, and Velocity of Aerosols

Photon correlation spectroscopy has been applied to the characterization of (quasi-)monodisperse aerosols. The experiments were carried out with an experimental standard pin hole setup on laminar flowing aerosols of the submicrometer particle size range. It is shown that beside local mean particle size and local aerosol velocity simultaneously the local particle number concentration may be obtained from a single measured autocorrelation function. The proposed procedure does not require calibration. It is pointed out that measurement conditions can be adapted to the properties of the aerosol to be characterized, thus allowing characterization of aerosols over a wide parameter range, e.g., it is not restricted to the case of low particle concentration. The experimental results are compared to data from literature, data from reference measurements and data from a theoretical model, respectively. The method can also be usefull for characterization of other fluid-particle systems as hydrosols. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.