Aerosol test atmospheres

Aerosols. Test atmospheres containing aerosols may be conveniently generated by a number of techniques including ... 

Examples of such procedures are making dilutions (not all components of the mixture may be equally soluble or miscible with the vehicle) and generating either vapors or respirable aerosols (not all the components may have equivalent volatility or surface tension, leading to a test atmosphere that contains only a portion of the components of the mixture). 

Acute inhalation toxicity To determine the potential acute toxicity-lethality following a single 4-h inhalation exposure to a test atmosphere containing the new pharmaceutical excipient (aerosol, vapor or particles)... 

Laskin-Type Nozzle Generator. A third type of atomizer, the Laskin-type nozzle generator, is used to create test atmospheres of particulate or aerosol and vapor mixtures. A pure liquid or melt is used, and no solvent is necessary. Again, this is important for evaluating filter and solid sorbent combination sampling trains. 

Gases are generally the easiest type of media to use because the contaminants in the test atmosphere are in the gaseous phase. Technically, aerosols include any liquid- or solid-phase material that forms a stable suspension in air. Dusts are solid-phase (contaminant) particles suspended into a gaseous (atmosphere) phase. They are generally the most difficult to use when conducting a study. 

No histological changes occurred in the liver of adolescent male rats that were whole-body exposed to 0 or 900 ng/m Aroclor 1242 vapor 23 hours/day for 30 days (Casey et al. 1999). The generation of the vapor-phase test atmosphere was based entirely on the evaporation of a liquid PCB mixture using a system that did not create aerosol droplets, and the concentration and congener composition of the test atmosphere was well characterized. Limitations of this study include only one exposure level and liver end point and a relatively small number of animals (8/group) however, uptake of PCBs in the liver was confirmed by tissue analysis, and the exposure was sufficient to induce effects in other tissues, including the thyroid, which is known to be particularly sensitive to PCBs. 

Experiments were conducted in a large (-26 m3) radon/thoron test facility (RTTF) designed for calibration purposes and simulation studies (Bigu, 1984). A number of different materials were exposed in the RTTF to a radon/radon progeny or thoron/thoron progeny atmosphere. Exposure of the materials was carried out under laboratory-controlled conditions of radiation level, aerosol concentration, air moisture content and temperature. The materials used were in the form of circular discs of the same thickness (-0.5 mm) and diameter (-25 mm), and they were placed at different locations on the walls of the RTTF at about 1.6 m above the floor. Other samples were placed on horizontal trays. Samples (discs) of different materials were arranged in sets of 3 to 4 they were placed very close to one another to ensure exposure under identical conditions. Exposure time was at least 24 hours to ensure surface activity equilibrium, or near equilibrium, conditions. 

The Britter and McQuaid10 model was developed by performing a dimensional analysis and correlating existing data on dense cloud dispersion. The model is best suited for instantaneous or continuous ground-level releases of dense gases. The release is assumed to occur at ambient temperature and without aerosol or liquid droplet formation. Atmospheric stability was found to have little effect on the results and is not a part of the model. Most of the data came from dispersion tests in remote rural areas on mostly flat terrain. Thus the results are not applicable to areas where terrain effects are significant. 

Both H2SO4 and HF catalysts suffer from substantial drawbacks. Anhydrous HF is a corrosive and highly toxic liquid with a boiling point close to room temperature. Tests in the Nevada desert showed that, if released into the atmosphere, HF forms stable aerosols, which drift downwind at ground level for several kilometers. In 1987, the accidental release of gaseous HF in Texas City resulted in emergency treatment for several hundred people (9). Therefore,... 

For aerosols of nonvolatile liquid and powdery compounds, the concentration of the mist or dust atmosphere must be expressed in terms of milligrams per liter or milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m3) of air. With advances in biotechnology, many pharmacological testing techniques are based on specific receptor bindings, in which the ratio of the number of molecules to those of the receptors are considered, in... 

For use with receptor models, it is desirable to collect particles far enough from the source to allow the emissions to reach equilibrium with the atmosphere, but not so far away that the source material under test becomes contaminated with aerosol from other sources. 

Johnson, R.L. Shah, J.J., Huntzlcker, J.J. "Analysis of organic, elemental, and carbonate carbon in ambient aerosols", in "Sampling and Analysis of Toxic Organics in the Atmosphere", American Society for Testing and Materials, STP 721, Philadelphia,... 

The possibility that carbon in small quantities is the dominant absorber in the atmospheric aerosol suggests looking for spectral features in carbon, which would provide a diagnostic test for this solid. Unfortunately, the absorption... 

Mechanisms and rates of transport of nuclear test debris in the upper and lower atmosphere are considered. For the lower thermosphere vertical eddy diffusion coefficients of 3-6 X 106 cm.2 sec. 1 are estimated from twilight lithium enhancement observations. Radiochemical evidence for samples from 23 to 37 km. altitude at 31° N indicate pole-ward mean motion in this layer. Large increases in stratospheric debris in the southern hemisphere in 1963 and 1964 are attributed to debris from Soviet tests, transported via the mesosphere and the Antarctic stratosphere. Most of the carbon-14 remains behind in the Arctic stratosphere. 210Bi/ 210Pb ratios indicate aerosol residence times of only a few days at tropospheric levels and only several weeks in the lower stratosphere. Implications for the inventory and distribution of radioactive fallout are discussed. 

Particle Number Concentration and Size Distribution. The development of aerosol science to its present state has been directly tied to the available instrumentation. The introduction of the Aitken condensation nuclei counter in the late 1800s marks the beginning of aerosol science by the ability to measure number concentrations (4). Theoretical descriptions of the change in the number concentration by coagulation quickly followed. Particle size distribution measurements became possible when the cascade impactor was developed, and its development allowed the validation of predictions that could not previously be tested. The cascade impactor was originally introduced by May (5, 6), and a wide variety of impactors have since been used. Operated at atmospheric pressure and with jets fabricated by conventional machining, most impactors can only classify particles larger... 

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