Calibration of the electrical aerosol analyzer at subambient pressures

Abstract

A commercial Electrical Aerosol Analyzer (EAA, TSI Inc. model 3030) was calibrated experimentally at three subambient pressures (i. e., 0.901, 0.878, and 0.853 atm). Each calibration resulted in a 19 × 11 response matrix and a size dependent sensitivity curve \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \left({\frac{{pA}}{{{\# \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {\# {cm^3}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {cm^3}}}}} \right) $\end{document}. The results of the calibration were incorporated into a data reduction computer program for size distribution inversion. The accuracy of the calibration was tested by measuring the size distribution of a NaCl polydisperse aerosol at the three subambient pressures. All the tests gave good agreement in the inverted mean geometric diameter and geometric standard deviation of the aerosol number size distribution.