Partner: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Center of Studies on Air quality and Climate Change, ICEHT- FORTH
PI: Prof. Nenes Athanasios ([email protected])
Operator: Carolina Molina ([email protected])
Mineral dust is one of the most abundant aerosols in the atmosphere, and understanding its properties provides insights into its effects on climate and human health. Generating representative dust aerosols is challenging; however, we use a setup similar to a Constant Output Dust Generator (Mitroo et al., 2021). Briefly, a modified Erlenmeyer flask equipped with an inlet at its base is used to blow clean air inside while it is shaken using a wrist-action shaker (WA-200, Cole-Parmer®, IL, USA). This creates a cyclonic flow that effectively generates aerosols, which can then be injected into a chamber. A particle cyclone can be installed inline before the aerosols exit to control the size of the injected particles. This setup produces particles representative of their sediment counterparts while maintaining a consistent size distribution.