The Manchester Aerosol Chamber - Instrumentation
A wide range of instruments are available for deployment in ground and aircraft-based field measurement within the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Manchester. These are available for deployment in the chamber in scheduled campaign mode and otherwise periodically when not in field use. In addition, there are a range of core instruments available for all experiments. Instruments sampling from the centre of the chamber evaluate the size, chemical composition, hygroscopic properties and cloud-forming potential of the aerosol particles as well as gas phase measurements of ozone and nitrogen oxides. An optical cavity is also being constructed across the chamber for absorption spectroscopy and scattering measurements. The instrumentation suite is broadly classified as follows:
Instrument |
Measured parameter |
Aerosol number and size distribution determination: |
|
TSI model 3785 and 3786 water-based Condensation Particle Counters |
Total aerosol number concentration down to 5 and 2.5nm, respectively |
Dry and wet Particle mobility size up to 0.8 μm diameter |
|
A TSI model 3081 Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) |
Dry or wet Particle mobility size up to 0.5 μm diameter |
Grimm model 1.109 optical particle counter |
optical particle size distributions from 0.25 to 32 μm diameter |
TSI model 3321 Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS) |
aerodynamic particle size distributions from 0.5 to 20 μm diameter |
Aerosol composition, derived property and mixing state determination: |
|
Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometers (AMS) – cToF & HR-ToF-AMS |
- Quantitative sub-micron non-refractory aerosol component mass loading as a function of vacuum aerodynamic size |
Filter holder for aerosol collection |
Offline speciation of organic composition using LC-MS and 2D-GC analysis |
A Hygroscopicity Tandem Differential Mobility Analyser (HTDMA) |
Hygroscopic growth factor (GF) at RH 90% for several dry sizes |
Probing the potential for aerosol processes to affect impact on radiation: |
|
- Activated fraction as a function of dry size and supersaturation |
|
A Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) system |
Scattering and absorption for appropriately sized aerosol populations |
Gas phase component concentrations: |
|
Thermo Scientific 42i NO-NO2-NOx-analyser |
NO, NO2, NOx mixing ratios |
Thermo Electron Corporation 49C O3 analyser |
O3 mixing ratio |