Nano-hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (nano-HTDMA) for investigating hygroscopic properties of sub-10&thinsp;nm aerosol nanoparticles

Lei, Ting; Ma, Nan; Hong, Juan; Tuch, Thomas; Wang, Xin; Wang, Zhibin; Pöhlker, Mira; Ge, Maofa; Wang, Weigang; Mikhailov, Eugene; Hoffmann, Thorsten; Pöschl, Ulrich; Su, Hang; Wiedensohler, Alfred; Cheng, Yafang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5551-2020

Articles | Volume 13, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5551-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5551-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 10

Research article

|

20 Oct 2020

Research article |

| 20 Oct 2020

Nano-hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (nano-HTDMA) for investigating hygroscopic properties of sub-10 nm aerosol nanoparticles

Ting Lei, Nan Ma, Juan Hong, Thomas Tuch, Xin Wang, Zhibin Wang, Mira Pöhlker, Maofa Ge, Weigang Wang, Eugene Mikhailov, Thorsten Hoffmann, Ulrich Pöschl, Hang Su, Alfred Wiedensohler, and Yafang Cheng

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Oct 2020)
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Preprint (discussion started on 14 Apr 2020)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review of amt-2020-110', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 May 2020
- AC1: 'Response to comments by anonymous referee #1', Ting Lei, 03 Aug 2020
RC2: 'Review of 'Nano-hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (nano-HTDMA) for investigating hygroscopic properties of sub-10 nm aerosol nanoparticles'', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Jun 2020
- AC2: 'Response to comments by anonymous referee #2', Ting Lei, 03 Aug 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Ting Lei on behalf of the Authors (16 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (18 Aug 2020) by Charles Brock

Thank you for making changes in response to the referee comments, and for an interesting and well-written manuscript. I have a conceptual question and then several technical corrections:
1) Line 367: I don't understand the heat source from the center electrode. Are you assuming it is at different temperature than the air, and if so, why? Please explain all the variables in the equation.
2) Fig. 3 caption: The sentence regarding the black solid lines is repeated at the end of the caption.
3) Tables S3, S4, and S5: These tables have far more significant figures than are plausible. Please use an appropriate number of sig figs (maybe 3?).
4) References: The formatting is very uneven, a consequence of using EndNote-type software. Please consistently abbreviate journal names, do not capitalize article titles, and please follow the other Copernicus formatting requirements.
5) Line 36: Change "interests" to "interest"
6) Line 68: Change "focus" to "focused"
7) Line 72: Change "attempting" to "that have attempted"
8) Line 87: Change "pre-deliquesced" to "pre-deliquescence"
9) Line 85: Remove "the"
10) Line 98: Change to "we present the design of a nano-HTDMA. . . ."
11) Line 109: Change to "We designed a nano-HTDMA system to. . . ."
12) Lines 126, 128, 130, 145: Please don't use abbreviations "Di." and "L.", and please use metric units instead of inches (").
13) Line 134: Missing a space between "NH-1" and "for"
14) Change from "Pure" to "Perma Pure"
15) Line 161: Change to "a low flow resistance. . . ."
16) Line 218: Change from "Thence" to "Thus"
17) Line 258: Change from "high" to "highly"
18) Line 273: Change from "atomizing" to "atomized from a . . . ."
19) Line 298: Change from "select" to "to select"
20) Line 302: Change from "to estimate" to "estimating"
21) Line 303: Place a "the" in front of "DMA"
22) Line 304: "HV" is already defined.
23) Line 323: Change "to calibrate" to "the calibration of"
24) Line 343: Change "deliquesce" to "deliquescence"
25) Line 384: Change "undergo" to "undergone"
26) Line 389: Change to "As RH further increases, the peak. . . ."
27) Line 445: Change to "in the hygroscopic growth factor. . . . "
28) Line 454: Change "a" to "an"
29) Lines 460, 461: Remove hyphen before "nm"
30) Line 472: Change to "the hygroscopicity of. . . ."
31) Line 482: Change to "an external mixture of . . . ."
32) Line 488: Change to "RH=84%"
33) Line 515: Change "underline" to "underlying".

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AR by Ting Lei on behalf of the Authors (28 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

We present the design of a nano-hygroscopicity tandem differential mobility analyzer (nano-HTDMA) apparatus that enables high accuracy and precision in hygroscopic growth measurements of aerosol nanoparticles with diameters less than 10 nm. We further introduce comprehensive methods for system calibration and validation of the performance of the system. We then study the size dependence of the deliquescence and the efflorescence of aerosol nanoparticles for sizes down to 6 nm.