AIDA

Experimental Facilities

The 22nd of May 1997 finally saw the inauguration celebration of Research Centre Karlsruhe's large aerosol chamber facility AIDA. With 103 m² of wall enclosing a 84.3 m³ volume, the surface to volume ratio of the reactor vessel assumes a favourably low value of only 1.22 m^-1. The chamber is evacuable and can be operated between 183 K and 333 K. Already during the first low temperature run a temporal as well as spatial temperature control of better than ±0.5 K was achieved over the whole accessible range. In agreement with theoretical predictions experimentally determined aerosol life times range from about one day for compact spherical particles with diameters between 0.1 and 1 µm up to more than a week for submicrometer soot agglomerates.

For technical and experimental details see

• The Aerosol Chamber Facility AIDA

In addition to AIDA, a smaller evacuable aerosol chamber, NAUA, and  a coolable teflon bag are also available in our laboratory.

.	AIDA	NAUA	Teflon bag
Volume:	84.3 m3	3.7 m3	3 m3
Surface area:	103 m2	13.4 m2	12 m2
Surface to volume ratio:	1.22 m-1	3.6 m-1	4 m-1
Surface material:	AlMg3, teflon bag optional	Stainless steel	Teflon
Temperature range:	183 K - 333 K	Ambient temperature	250 K to ambient
Temperature stability:	±0.5 K	±2 K	±1 K

• Experimental setup of NAUA facility during studies of ozone depletion by soot particles (image, 9 KB)