AEROSOL GROWTH BY CONDENSATION IN A WELL-MIXED CHAMBER

Aerosol growth by condensation, when the equation for the size distribution is coupled to the vapor conservation equation, is considered theoretically. The problem is reduced to solving a single integro differential equation for the droplet radius R(R0,t), treated-as a function of the radius R0 in the initial (or source) distribution that grows to R in time t. As an illustration, two homogeneous situations are considered. In the first, vapor flows into a chamber containing particles. The vapor flow rate determines the maximum saturation reached and thus the minimum particle size grown (because of the Kevlin effect). In the second, vapor and particles flow into the chamber together. Particles entering earlier grow more and wide distributions result. The treatment in this case can be extended to include nucleation. Calculations using two transition regime growth formulas are compared: differences in final distributions are generally found to be small.