Aerosol Mass Spectrometer for Aircraft Sampling using Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

Aerosol particles play an important role in visibility, acid deposition, climate, and human health, although large uncertainties remain in quantifying their impacts which depend on their chemical composition and atmospheric transformations. An innovativeaerosol mass spectrometer has been recently designed to fill a critical need for size-resolved, quantitative chemical composition data on aerosol particles. An aircraft version of this instrument that meets the size, weight, ruggedness, and timeresolution requirements for aircraft operation has been deployed aboard ONR's CIRPAS Twin Otter research aircraft. We propose to upgrade this instrument in order to improve detection sensitivity which is critical for aircraft measurements in cleanenvironments. This includes hardware and software developments to improve autonomous aircraft operation. The ultimate goal is to incorporate a time of flight mass spectrometer which will dramatically improve the detection and characterization ofspecific chemical species, and will enable chemical composition measurements on an individual particle by particle basis.