Investigations on the Influence of Chemical Compounds on Fog Microphysical Parameters

Abstract

Lab experiments related to artificial fog studies are limited due to instrument sensitivity to small fog and aerosol particles; therefore, the goal of this work is to evaluate aerosol solute effects on fog physical properties in a lab environment. To reach the goal, an automated fog-generating system was designed and that includes controlled chemical compounds dissolved in pure water. In the analysis, the impact of changing the mass concentration of potassium dihydrogen phosphate—KH2PO4, urea-CO(NH2)2, and potassium hexacyanoferrate trihydrate-K3(Fe(CN)6) on fog droplet size spectra is studied, because visibility is directly related to fog droplet spectra and aerosol composition. In the experiment, various microphysical conditions, including fog droplet size and volume concentration, were analyzed as a function of changing aerosol composition/spectra and fixed thermodynamic conditions. The results showed that fog droplet size spectra vary with the addition of chemical impurities to the pure water volume. For example, increasing KH2PO4 concentration compared to distilled water volume resulted in a higher mean particle size, which led to faster droplet settlement, and that resulted in cleaning air more efficiently compared to pure water fog. Overall, both issues and challenges of the experimental fog generating system with respect to water and aerosol solutions resembling CRBN (chemical, radiological, biological, and nuclear agents) characteristics are provided and evaluated.

Observation, Simulation and Predictability of Fog: Review and Perspectives

“…Once a fog layer has been formed, the number of fog droplets and their size distribution can have a large impact on the development of the fog layer due to their feedback on gravitational settling and radiative cooling at the fog top, which are key processes for fog [6][7][8][9]. In the past 30 years, more and more attention has been paid to the study of the microphysical characteristics of fog, and continuous progress had been made in the development of observation instruments of fog microphysical parameters [6]. Significant variability has been observed in the droplet size distribution in fog [9].…”

Production of Artificial Fog in the PAVIN Fog and Rain Platform: In Search of Big Droplets Fog

“…Cerema had conducted previous studies on the subject but with a single nozzle tested [21] with different water pressures or different types of water [22] [23]. Finally, there are works looking at the chemistry's impact on droplet size [24] in the field of agriculture for example [25] [26], but in these cases, the water is not pure and droplet size is larger than that of the fog (100 microns).…”

Experimental Control of a Reaction Occurring during the Interaction between Chicken Anemia Virus (CAV) and Its Corresponding Antibodies

“…A team of researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has been actively involved in research of electromagnetic field-matter interactions and development of sensors based on the Electromagnetic echo effect (EMEE) [1], which was previously known as the Surface photo charge effect (SPCE) [2,3]. It was discovered during studies on the transverse acoustoelectric voltage effect and can be observed when any solid body is irradiated by an electromagnetic field.…”