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Abstract
A strategy for examining the dynamic hygroscopic response of single aerosol particles is reported, allowing a direct investigation of the interplay of thermodynamic and kinetic factors regulating the time dependence of particle size. In particular, we investigate the rapid evaporation of water from water–glycerol droplets, measuring the evolving size with a time resolution of <10 ms (with as low as 2.5 ms being possible) over a time range from subsecond to many hours. Measurements can be made on sequential droplets generated from a droplet-on-demand generator, and a reproducibility of better than ±0.25 μm in droplet size over tens of events can be achieved at any resolved time point considered during an evaporation process lasting >2 s. The time-dependent measurements of evolving droplet size are compared with an analytical treatment of the evaporation process. Excellent agreement between measurements and simulations is found over a wide range of starting droplet compositions. The benefits of using this approach for investigating water transport within the bulk of an aerosol particle or to/from the droplet surface are discussed.
Copyright 2012 American Association for Aerosol Research
Acknowledgments
Dr. Christian Heinisch and Dr. Jon Wills are acknowledged for their contribution to this project at the early stages of the development of the new instrument, and Dr. Rachael Miles is acknowledged for helpful discussions. JPR acknowledges financial support from the EPSRC through the support of a Leadership Fellowship. JFD acknowledges the EPSRC for the award of a PhD studentship. AEH acknowledges the University of Bristol for the support of a postdoctoral research fellowship.
