Low pressure aerosol flow reactor

Abstract

In this work we report the development of a novel low pressure aerosol flow reactor for the determination of the kinetic parameters of fast heterogeneous processes. The experimental apparatus consists of a spray atomizer to introduce aerosols into a low pressure zone; a fast flow reactor for kinetic measurements and an IR spectrometer and mass spectrometer for concentration measurements. The surface area distribution and number density of the aerosol particles are determined from their infrared spectra and the decay kinetics are determined by monitoring the disappearance rates of the gas phase species (with a mass spectrometer) as a function of the aerosol properties. We report the application of this apparatus to the investigation of the uptake of acetone by liquid water aerosols (0.1-20 μm diameter) at room temperature and a pressure of 35 Torr. These measurements yielded a value of the mass accommodation coefficient, α, of 3.6-2+3.1 × 10-3. Copyright © American Association for Aerosol Research.