ABSTRACT
An aerosol is a dispersion of small solid or liquid particles suspended in a gas, usually air. The term aerosol refers to both the particles and the suspending gas. Aerosol particle sizes range from 0.001 µm (0.001 µm 109 m 1 nm 10 Å) to 100 µm (104 m), hence, the particle sizes of interest span over several orders of magnitude, ranging from almost macroscopic dimensions down to near molecular sizes. An aerosol is a twophase system with a gas phase and a dispersed phase, called particulate phase, which may be solid or liquid. In aerosols, the particulate phase is diluted. Particles represent a very small fraction, 0.0001%, of the total aerosol mass or volume. In most cases the two phases are one-way coupled: the hydrodynamics of the gas phase influences the behavior of the particulate phase, while the particulate phase exerts negligible influence on the hydrodynamics of the gas phase.
