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A condensation particle counter or CPC is a particle counter that detects and counts aerosol particles by first enlarging them by using the particles as nucleation centers to create droplets in a supersaturated gas. [2] Three techniques have been used to produce nucleation: Adiabatic expansion using an expansion chamber.
Andersen's schematic for the six-stage Andersen sampler, detailing movement of air and hole sizes for the top two stages [1]. An Andersen sampler, Andersen impactor, or sieve impactor [2] is a cascade impactor used to determine the amount of viable pathogens in a given area, in particular bacteria and fungi.
The light blocking optical particle counter method is typically useful for detecting and sizing particles greater than 1 micrometre in size and is based upon the amount of light a particle blocks when passing through the detection area of the particle counter. This type of technique allows high resolution and reliable measurement.
The air now contains only particles of a certain diameter. The flow is introduced into a CPC, a condensation particle counter, which measures the concentration of particles in an aerosol sample. The CPC works by using butanol vapor condensation on the particles present in the air sample. The particles are exposed to butanol vapor heated to 39 °C.
Cascade impactors are strictly measurement-related devices. In addition to measuring the range of substances moved through an opening by aerosol, the impactor can also be used to determine the particle size of the distributed substance. A cascade impactor collects its samples in a graduated manner.
Besides measuring the total mass of particles per unit volume of air (particle mass concentration), sometimes it is more useful to measure the total number of particles per unit volume of air (particle number concentration). This can be done by using a condensation particle counter (CPC). [96] [97]
An example of this is the Coulter counter, which measures the momentary changes in the conductivity of a liquid passing through an orifice that take place when individual non-conducting particles pass through. The particle count is obtained by counting pulses. This pulse is proportional to the volume of the sensed particle.
An alternative measurement for particulates, particle number, expresses the concentration in terms of the number of particles per volume of air instead, which can be a more meaningful way of assessing the health harms of highly toxic ultrafine particles (PM 0.1, less than 0.1 μm in diameter).