Size Distribution and Critical Supersaturation Spectrum of the Aerosol from an Electrically Heated Nichrome Wire

An aerosol generator was constructed that produces particles from the Joule heating of a nichrome wire. This novel generator produced a stable output (±20%) over a 7 hour period. The approximate mean diameter was 24 nm. The critical supersaturation spectrum was measured and found to be quite high (5.4% for 24 nm particles), showing that this nichrome aerosol was highly insoluble. Energy dispersive spectroscopy showed that the percentage of Cr far exceeded that of Ni in the particles, whereas in the bulk wire, Cr has only one third the concentration of Ni