Abstract
Total aerosol particle number concentrations, as measured by means of 16 different measurement systems, have been quantitatively compared during an international workshop at the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Vienna, Austria, which was coordinated within the Committee on Nucleation and Atmospheric Aerosols (ICCP-IUGG). The range of measuring instruments includes Pollak counters (PCO) in use already for several decades, presently available commercial particle counters, as well as laboratory prototypes. The operation of the instruments considered was based on different measurement principles: (1) adiabatic expansion condensation particle counter, (2) flow diffusion condensation particle counter, (3) turbulent mixing condensation particle counter, (4) laser optical particle counter, and (5) electrostatic particle measurement system. Well-defined test aerosols with various chemical compositions were considered: DEHS, sodium chloride, silver, hydrocarbons, and tungsten oxide. The test aerosols were nearly monodispersed with mean particle diameters between 4 and 520 nm, the particle number concentrations were varied over a range from about 4 x 101 to 7 x 106 cm-3. A few measurements were performed with two- component aerosol mixtures. For simultaneous concentration measurements, the various instruments considered were operated under steady state conditions in a linear flow system. A series of at least 10 single concentration measurements was performed by each individual instrument at each set of test aerosol parameters. The average of the concentration data measured by the various instruments was defined as a common reference. The number concentrations obtained from the various instruments typically agreed within a factor of about two over the entire concentration range considered. The agreement of the measured concentrations is notable considering the various different measurement principles applied in this study, and particularly in view of the broad range of measurement instruments used. Significant deviations and nonlinear response were observed only in a few cases and are possibly related to calibration errors. For certain conditions, a dependence of aerosol counter response on particle composition has been found. The scatter of the number concentrations obtained from each individual instrument during measurements with constant test aerosol typically did not exceed 20% to 25%. At concentrations below 103 cm-3, however, several of the instruments, including electrostatic particle measurement systems, tend to show increased experimental scatter. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Recommended Citation
A. Ankilov and A. Baklanov and M. Colhoun and K. H. Enderle and J. Gras and Y. Julanov and D. Kaller and A. Lindner and A. A. Lushnikov and R. Mavliev and F. McGovern and T. C. O'Connor and J. Podzimek and O. Preining, "Intercomparison of Number Concentration Measurements by Various Aerosol Particle Counters," Atmospheric Research, vol. 62, no. 3 thru 4, pp. 177 - 207, Elsevier, Jan 2002.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-8095(02)00010-8
Department(s)
Physics
Keywords and Phrases
Aerosol number concentration; Condensation nuclei counter; Diffusion battery; Electro mobility spectrometer; Intercomparison study; Optical particle counter
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0169-8095
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2024 Elsevier, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Jan 2002
Comments
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Grant None