Abstract
This article discusses aerosol generation technique using inkjet technology. Inkjet-based aerosol generation technique has been applied to a development of drug delivery systems and sample delivery to mass spectrometers. The inkjet aerosol generator (IAG) was first developed by Bottiger J. at US-Army, and the Bottiger-IAG generated bio-aerosols having particle diameter ranging from 1 to 10 µm at low concentrations (~ few particles per cm3 or below). Recently, a new type of IAG was developed at AIST, Japan, and it was applied to aerosol instrumentation. The most important characteristic of the AIST-IAG is that it can suppress the formation of doublets and satellite droplets; therefore, the AIST-IAG is able to generate highly monodisperse aerosol particles with precisely known generation rates. The particle diameter can be controlled between 0.4 and 10 µm. Some applications of AIST-IAG are (1) checking the particle-counting-capability of condensation particle counters (CPCs) on a daily basis, and (2) calibrating particle counting efficiency of optical particle counters (OPCs).
