Mass concentration calculation with the pulse height distribution of aerosols and system calibration

Abstract The pulse height distribution of aerosols, which was measured by an optical particle counter, was applied to inverse aerosol mass concentration. Using the conceptions of equivalent diameters, the feasibility that the pulse height distribution was used to inverse mass concentration was verified theoretically, and then the definition of average mass was introduced. According to the Mie scattering theory, considering particle shape and non-uniformity of intensity distribution in the optical sensing volume, a novel algorithm for mass concentration was proposed based on the theoretical analysis. In this algorithm, we only need to calibrate two coefficients. The Gauss–Newton and the two-step calibration methods were presented. The former method revealed that calibration coefficients calculated with nonlinear regression are related to the range of mass concentration, leading to the instability of the calibration coefficients. Furthermore, though detailed analysis of the problem, the latter method was put forward. The experimental results indicate mass concentrations inversed by the algorithm have high precision.