Evaluation of aerosol sizing characteristic of an impactor using imaging plate technique

Abstract

The activity-size distribution of radon decay products are normally determined using two approaches: direct and indirect. The present study utilises the direct approach to evaluate sizing information of a low pressure cascade impactor using imaging plate (IP) technique for radon decay products. The experiment verified the use of the collection media as suggested by the manufacturer of impactor and proposed a few improvements toward sizing characteristics of impactor. The obtained relative activity-size distribution of radon decay products presents a sharp unimodal log-normal distribution of the particle characterised by activity median aerodynamic diameter (AMAD) of 268 nm and geometric standard deviation (sigma(g)) of 1.66. The obtained data with all the suggested improvements were evaluated by the data obtained from a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS, Model 3934, TSI Inc), as reference data. The verification lead to a derivative area ratio of 0.803 between the reference and experimental data.