Quantitative observation of attenuation coefficient of electromagnetic wave propagation in haze incorporating charged aerosol

Abstract

Haze incorporating abundant charged aerosol has become a main air problem in various metropolitan cities worldwide. Studying the propagation characteristics of electromagnetic wave (EMW) in charged haze aerosol is conducive to calibrate instruments designed based on energy attenuation of EMW and is critical to providing guidance for deployment of network base stations. Here, we simulated haze conditions by quantitatively controlling the concentration, water content, and charge quantity of aerosols in laboratory and first found that attenuation coefficient of EMW changes linearly with these factors. In addition, we proposed a method to determine the complex dielectric constant of haze aerosols. Upon this, a new model, which combines the surface conductivity of a single particle at micro level with the charge density of the aerosol at macro level, was developed to quantitatively evaluate the contributions of aerosol concentration, water content and charges on the attenuation of EMW. The results show that when EMW propagates in charged haze aerosol, its attenuation coefficient can be quantitatively characterized by mass concentration, particle moisture and charge-to-mass ratio of aerosol. And the simulated results are in good agreement with the experiments.