Aerosol Coagulation and Morphology Studies

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Narrative: It is proposed to study coagulation of fine particle aerosols using static and dynamic light scattering and electron micrography inspection. The goals are: l. To determine the applicability of the fractal concept to describe aerosol particle morphology and how this fractal morphology depends on Knudsen number, particle interactions, and concurrent surface growth. 2. To test temporal scaling of the coagulative growth of aerosols in the entire Knudsen regime and determine the dependence of the coagulation kernel homogeneity and dynamic fractal dimension on Knudsen number, particle interactions, and concurrent surface growth. 3. To measure the approach of an arbitrary aerosol particle size distribution to the self-preserving form and study the effects of fractal morphology on the measurement. 4. To measure the rate of coagulation in the intermediate Knudsen regime in both liquid and solid particle aerosols. 5. To characterize the phenomenon of aerosol clumping and determine its effect on coagulative growth. Aerosols will be created from either oil droplets (DOP) or solids (NaCl, Ag) and soot from premixed flames. Sizes will be in the 5-100 nm range before coagulation. An understanding of aerosol coagulation, its rate and temporal evolution, and its effect on the resultant cluster morphology will help our fundamental understanding of aerosols and the coagulative process.