CPMA | Centrifugal Particle Mass Analyzer

With a touchscreen display and a variety of interfacing options, the CPMA is self contained, with no setup required- only electrical power needs to be connected before the CPMA can be run. The CPMA can record data to a USB drive, and supports analog and digital interfacing with a variety of CPCs, electrometers and other devices.

The CPMA classifier can easily be dissembled for cleaning by the user, the whole process taking less than 1 hour. All necessary tools are included. This makes the CPMA well suited to high concentration / longer duration experiments, and field or laboratory studies.

The CPMA uses standard sealed bearings, for maintenance free operation.

Traditional Aerosol Mass Measurement

Historically the Differential Mobility Analyzer (DMA) has been used to classify nanoparticles by electrical mobility. This technique has become an internationally accepted standard for ultrafine particle size measurement.

The classification in a DMA depends on the ratio between electrical charge and aerodynamic drag on each particle. Since both of these parameters depend on particle morphology, techniques to calculate ultrafine aerosol mass using DMA measurements have required empirical factors to account for varying particle morphology.

Direct Nanoparticle Mass Measurement

The difficulties associated with morphology and electrical mobility measurement are overcome by techniques which classify based upon aerosol mass directly. A technique which does this by balancing the electrostatic and centrifugal forces on a particle was first described by Ehara et al. in 1996. The APM-3600 and APM-3601 Aerosol Particle Mass Analyzers from Kanomax use these techniques.

Applications of the CPMA

• Aerosol mass determination for basic research

• Determination of particle "fractal dimension," in conjunction with a DMA

• Fundamental aerosol mass calibration standard - measurement of suspended particle mass

• An alternative to a DMA for producing a monodisperse aerosol

• Determination of the mixing state of atmospheric black carbon (important for climate change modelling)

• Calibration of other aerosol instruments- e.g. Droplet Measurement Technologies' Single Particle Soot Photometer (SP2)