Demonstration of the CPMA-Electrometer System for Calibrating Black Carbon Particulate Mass Instruments

Abstract

In an effort to improve regulations for particulate emissions from aircraft engines, the Aircraft Exhaust Emissions Measurement Committee, SAE E-31, is investigating instruments to measure black carbon mass concentration in real time. The current candidates are a laser-induced incandescence instrument (LII 300) and a photo-acoustic Micro-Soot Sensor (MSS). However, both of these instruments use indirect techniques, measuring parameters other than the actual mass of particulate in the exhaust, and therefore require calibration. Previously, it has been shown that a centrifugal particle mass analyzer (CPMA) can be used in conjunction with an aerosol electrometer to traceably generate an aerosol with known mass concentration. This system can be used to rapidly calibrate particle mass instruments (on the order of minutes), without the time-consuming process of filter sampling, which is often used for calibration and prone to sampling artifacts. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of the CPMA-electrometer syst...