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A charging unit for unipolar charging of cloud and fog droplets has been developed and calibrated regarding ion current, angular distribution of ions, mean droplet charge and droplet charge distribution. The charger is part of the droplet aerosol analyser, which is an instrument used for characterisation of droplets and interstitial particles in atmospheric clouds and fog. Three different calibration methods have been used for the charge calibration, whereof the third and newest method makes use of a differential mobility analyser, especially developed for large particles, up to at least 20 mum in diameter. The number of charges acquired is a strictly increasing function of the droplet diameter. Two charging models have been used for comparisons with the measurements and both models show good agreement with the data regarding the size dependency of the charge level. Both models can thus be used to describe the performance of the charger. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this study of the transfer function of copies of the Vienna-type differential mobility analyser (DMA) it was found that three, supposedly identical, DMAs exhibited distinct differences with respect to the width of the transfer function. This means that the transfer function of a DMA needs to be determined on an individual basis in order to obtain accurate results from DMA measurements. The size dependence of the transfer function width and the penetration of three DMAs were investigated experimentally in a broad range of Peclet numbers (400-400000). Two of the three DMAs exhibited transfer function widths in excess of the broadening induced by diffusion. The size dependence of the width of all three DMAs could be explained within a few percents by assuming an instrument-specific, size-independent broadening in addition to diffusion broadening. The penetration was evaluated by relating to deposition in a circular tube. Excellent agreement between the experimental data and the simple model was obtained. The penetration study was extended to include literature data, showing that the simple model could be applied and that there are distinct differences between different DMA types. The results of this study indicate that the size dependence of the width of the transfer function and the penetration can be estimated by measuring the transfer function for a single particle size, thus greatly reducing the amount of work required by DMA users to characterise their instruments. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. (Less)

Aerosol number concentrations in three size ranges (d(p) > 4, d(p) > 12, 18 less than or equal to, dp less than or equal to, 135 nm) and sulfur mass from impactor samples were collected over a total of about 120 sampling hours on 18 long-range commercial flights between the northern mid-latitudes and the equatorial region covering an altitude range between 8.8 and 11.2 km. The data were evaluated with a new random search algorithm to derive monomodal lognormal particle size distributions. Through tests of the algorithm using synthetic data and size distributions from mountain stations the retrieval capabilities of the fitting algorithm are established. The fitting of aerosol data yields three parameters of the submicrometer size distribution. Their latitudinal trends indicate the influence of tropical and mid-latitudinal source regions on the tropopause aerosol. Total particle numbers show maxima near tropical biomass burning, and over the European regions. Geometric mean diameters decrease north of 35degreesN while the width of the distribution increases, indicating a move towards more frequent recent nucleation events or more frequent bimodal size distributions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A technique for the characterisation of droplet aerosols is presented and theoretically evaluated. The system, which finds applications for example in the experimental study of cloud formation and cloud water chemistry, relies on a four-step process. The droplet aerosol is electrically charged in a unipolar charging unit, followed by diffusion drying of the droplets, resulting in charged particles consisting of non-volatile matter (droplet residues). In the third step, the residual particles are classified by electrostatic spectrometry, and in the final step the residual particles are detected, collected or further characterised. The basic function in respect of the charging process and the particle interaction with water vapour is demonstrated by model calculations, which show that droplets which are activated in a thermodynamical sense can be separated from unactivated droplets. Different strategies for the application of the system are briefly outlined. By measuring two parameters, associated droplet size and residual particle size can be determined. Results from the first field measurement campaign of the resulting instrument are also briefly presented.

The electrical charge limit of crystallizing sodium chloride droplets has been studied. Moderately charged sodium chloride solution droplets were dried to highly charged residual particles. The charge limit was found to be near the Rayleigh charge limit for saturated sodium chloride droplets of the same size as the residual particle. The charge loss was not found to affect the particle size to a detectable degree.