Generation of submicron monodisperse aerosols in electrosprays

Abstract Glycerol seeded with NaI is electrosprayed in air, and the droplets generated are sampled into either a variable-speed impactor or a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) for size and charge measurement. Under some conditions, the aerosol sampled is highly monodisperse, with particles in the range of 0.1 μm carrying some 1000 elementary charge units. An idealized model provides a rough scaling law for the droplet size (Eq.7) in agreement with our measurements and with data for much larger droplets. Although earlier evidence on the monodispersity of electrosprayed aerosols was available in the size range of tens of micrometers and also in the region of single metal ions, this seems to be the first report on highly monodisperse submicron aerosols generated by atomization.

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