TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a bench scale method for constant output of mineral dust
AU - Mitroo, Dhruv
AU - Gill, Thomas E.
AU - Haas, Savannah
AU - Pratt, Kerri A.
AU - Gaston, Cassandra J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (USA) under grants AGS-1663740 and AGS-1663726. S.H. and K.A.P. acknowledge the University of Michigan REU Program in the Chemical Sciences (CHE-1460990). We thank one anonymous reviewer for comments that improved our manuscript. We are very grateful to the following individuals for collection of samples: Prof. Heather Holmes and Prof. Bernhard Bach (Black Rock Desert playa); Prof. Maura Hahnenberger (Great Salt Lake playa); Prof. Joanna Nield, Jana Lasser, and Lucas Goehring (Owens Lake playa); Prof. Roya Bahreini (Salton Sea playa); and Dr. R. Scott Van Pelt (Sulphur Springs Draw). We thank Prof. Andrew Baker for use of the orbital shaker, and Prof. Kimberly Popendorf for use of the vortex shaker in troubleshooting the development of the CODG.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Association for Aerosol Research.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - To realize the environmental impacts of mineral dust from different sources, it is necessary to develop aerosol generation systems that can mimic the processes of aerosolization of sediments into dusts under controlled laboratory settings. Current laboratory dust generation systems would benefit from a critical evaluation of the mechanisms by which they generate dust beyond mere resuspension to include natural eolian processes such as saltation/sandblasting. Without realistically generated aerosols, laboratory-measured dust properties may not capture properties relevant to the natural environment. We describe the development of a benchtop system, the Constant Output Dust Generator (CODG), whose design takes into account the dominant natural physical processes of wind erosion and mineral dust production. The CODG’s major components include a wrist-action shaker, custom-built flask, dilution drum, cyclone, and neutralizer. A carrier gas provides flow through the system resulting in dust entrainment. We achieved constant output, typically <10% variation in aerosol surface area concentration, for both a commercial standard as well as environmental samples (saline crusts and loose sediments). We find that the composition of aerosols generated from the CODG is consistent with the composition of the parent source material. We further show that our system is suitable for determination of reaction rates on suspended dust aerosols. At similar mechanical energy inputs, it generates sufficient material (particle surface area concentrations between 10−5 − 10−3 cm2 cm−3) for many applications from both loose sandy sediment and cohesive evaporite crusts. The CODG represents a system potentially applicable for numerous applications of dust aerosol research.
AB - To realize the environmental impacts of mineral dust from different sources, it is necessary to develop aerosol generation systems that can mimic the processes of aerosolization of sediments into dusts under controlled laboratory settings. Current laboratory dust generation systems would benefit from a critical evaluation of the mechanisms by which they generate dust beyond mere resuspension to include natural eolian processes such as saltation/sandblasting. Without realistically generated aerosols, laboratory-measured dust properties may not capture properties relevant to the natural environment. We describe the development of a benchtop system, the Constant Output Dust Generator (CODG), whose design takes into account the dominant natural physical processes of wind erosion and mineral dust production. The CODG’s major components include a wrist-action shaker, custom-built flask, dilution drum, cyclone, and neutralizer. A carrier gas provides flow through the system resulting in dust entrainment. We achieved constant output, typically <10% variation in aerosol surface area concentration, for both a commercial standard as well as environmental samples (saline crusts and loose sediments). We find that the composition of aerosols generated from the CODG is consistent with the composition of the parent source material. We further show that our system is suitable for determination of reaction rates on suspended dust aerosols. At similar mechanical energy inputs, it generates sufficient material (particle surface area concentrations between 10−5 − 10−3 cm2 cm−3) for many applications from both loose sandy sediment and cohesive evaporite crusts. The CODG represents a system potentially applicable for numerous applications of dust aerosol research.
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U2 - 10.1080/02786826.2021.1888866
DO - 10.1080/02786826.2021.1888866
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85102438485
VL - 55
SP - 692
EP - 702
JO - Aerosol Science and Technology
JF - Aerosol Science and Technology
SN - 0278-6826
IS - 6
ER -