Publication Date:
2017-01-17
Description:
Here we describe the design and testing of a compact fluidized bed aerosol generator named PRIZE (PRinted fluidIZed bed gEnerator) manufactured using stereolithography (SLA) printing. Dispersing small quantities of powdered materials – due either to rarity or expense – is challenging due to a lack of small, low-cost dry aerosol generators. With this as motivation, we designed and built a generator that uses a mineral dust or other dry powder sample mixed with bronze beads that sit atop a porous screen. A particle free airflow is introduced, dispersing the sample as airborne particles. Particle number concentration and size distributions were measured during different stages of the assembling process to show that the SLA 3D printed generator did not generate particles until the mineral dust sample was introduced. Time-series measurements with Arizona Test Dust (ATD) showed stable total particle number concentrations of 10–150 cm−3, depending on the sample mass, from the sub- to super-micrometer size range. PRIZE is simple to assemble, easy to clean, inexpensive and deployable for laboratory and field studies that require dry particle generation.
Electronic ISSN:
1867-8610
Topics:
Geosciences
