Diffusion charging of aerosol nanoparticles with an excess of bipoloar ions

The equations of diffusion charging of, aerosol particles in a bipolar ion environment have no analytical transient solution. Such a solution can, however, be obtained in the special but important case of a relatively high ion concentration and aerosols with a particle size of a few nanometres, for which the probability of multiple charging is vanishingly small. The analytical transient solution obtained has an application to nanoaerosol particle size distribution measurement by electric mobility analysis. It also allows determination of the mean aerosol residence time required to attain the stationary charge distribution as a function of the ion concentration and physical properties (mass, mobility), this result having a practical application to the design of charging devices for aerosol nanoparticles.