Characterization and demonstration of a black carbon aerosol mimic for instrument evaluation

This study describes the characterization of a H2O-dispersible, highly-absorbing carbonaceous nanomaterial that mimics the morphological and spectroscopic properties of aged black carbon aerosol (BC). When atomized from aqueous suspension, the material forms particles with a collapsed morphology resembling aged soot or BC. The material is >90 percent elemental carbon and has a mass absorption coefficient (MAC) and spectral dependence consistent with BC values published in the literature. The MAC at a wavelength of 532 nm decreased monotonically from 8.5 to 5.8 m2 g−1 for aerosol with mobility diameters between 150 nm to 500 nm. The single scatter albedo (SSA) at wavelengths of 405 nm and 660 nm was a function of both wavelength and mobility diameter and increased from 0.1 to 0.4 with mobility diameters between 150 nm to 400 nm. The Ångström absorption exponent (AAE) between λ = 405 nm and 780 nm decreased monotonically from 1.4 to 0.6 for aerosol with mobility diameters between 150 nm to 400 nm. We demonstrate that this material can be used for fast, efficient calibration of aerosol photoacoustic spectrometers and for evaluation of spectroscopic-based measurements of aerosol mass concentration using in-situ photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) and filter-based light attenuation measurements for up 50 µg m−3, enabling inter-method and inter-laboratory instrument comparison. Copyright © 2019 American Association for Aerosol Research</p

Common Single-Use Consumer Plastic Products Release Trillions of Sub-100 nm Nanoparticles per Liter into Water during Normal Use

This study demonstrates that commonly used consumer products such as single-use food grade nylon bags and hot beverage cups lined with low-density polyethylene release nanometer-sized plastic particles at number densities >1012 L–1 when exposed to water. The number of particles released was a function of the initial water temperature (high temperature vs ambient) for each of the tested materials. Mean particle diameters were between 30 and 80 nm with few particles >200 nm. The number of particles released into hot water from food grade nylon was 7 times higher when compared to single-use beverage cups. On a particle number density basis, particles released into water from a single 300 mL hot beverage cup equate to one particle for every seven cells in the human body in a size range available for cellular uptake

Absorption Spectra of Martian Dust Simulants

Understanding the Martian climate requires a detailed characterization of the optical properties of Martian dust as it is a ubiquitous component of the atmosphere. The continued improvement of Martian atmosphere observations motivates measurements of terrestrial simulants under controlled conditions to support field studies and computational modeling. This investigation demonstrates an in situ method to entrain and directly measure the absorption spectrum of six Martian dust simulants using photoacoustic spectroscopy. Measured size distributions and absorption cross sections (Cabs) are used in Mie theory calculations to retrieve the effective imaginary component of the refractive index (keff) of each sample while constraining the real component to n = 1.5, the refractive index of silica. The weakly absorbing simulants have keff values ranging between 0.002 and 0.03 at a wavelength of 500 nm that are correlated with the mass fraction of iron oxides

Impactor collection efficiencies can modify the uncertainty of multiply charged particles in optical extinction measurements

The complex distribution of particle charge states resulting from neutralization processes by radioactive or soft X-ray charge neutralizers is a well-documented problem in aerosol science. Here, we demonstrate that non-idealities in the collection efficiency of an impactor allows for the transmission of an unexpected population of multiply charged particles by a differential mobility analyzer that can bias optical measurements. The extinction cross sections (Cext) of ammonium sulfate particles were quantified using cavity ring-down spectroscopy and particle counting. Particles were selected by electrical mobility (i.e., a metric of particle size) using a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) or electrical mobility and mass selected by a tandem DMA and aerosol particle mass analyzer (APM), respectively, to elucidate multiple charging artifacts. Measured Cext exhibited statistically significant differences at particle sizes near the impactor cut point implying that these multiply charged particles should not be present and could not be confirmed by parallel size distribution measurements. Additionally, comparison of Cext with Mie theory demonstrates that misclassification of the multiply charged particles can give rise to numerically accurate results. To understand these observations, the collection efficiency (CE) of four impactors from similar electrostatic classifiers was investigated. From these measurements, it was determined that the nominal and actual diameters of the impactors differed by −0.5% (457 μm vs. (455 ± 1) μm, respectively (uncertainty is 1σ standard deviation)) but the average Stk50 (the Stokes number at the cut-point, D50) values differed by ≈ 23% (0.23 vs. 0.18 ± 0.01, respectively). The measured CE as a function of √Stk (a metric of particle aerodynamic size) exhibits a long tail toward higher √Stk values, allowing for transmission of the larger and multiply charged particles observed in the optical measurements. These measurements highlight the utility of using orthogonal, spectroscopic methods to quantify the presence of multiply charged particles.</p