1991 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages 248-256
The performance of an aerosol generator that nebulizes PSL (polystyrene latex) suspensions was evaluated in the size range between 0.1 to 0.3 μm. The PSL size distribution spectra under various generating conditions were obtained with two laser particle counters in parallel and a multi-channel analyzer. The stability of the algorithm for the location parameters and the widths of the spectra was investigated first. On this basis, the variability of the generation was evaluated separately from the measurement errors. The reproducibility of the mean particle size thus found was better than 1 %. When the concentration of the generated PSL exceeded 106 particles/l, the mean size was observed to decrease, which may be attributed to the signal processing characteristics of the counters used in the experiment. The other factors including centrifugation of the PSL suspension, nebulizing and drying air flow rates and variability of the nebulizers were found to have smaller effects on the mean size. The applicability of the generation method to the public inspection service of laser particle counters is discussed on the basis of the results.
