Soot Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (SP-AMS)

The Soot Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (SP-AMS) makes real-time, in situ measurements of black carbon containing particles.  The SP-AMS instrument combines the technologies from two proven, commercial aerosol instruments: Aerodyne’s Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) (Canagaratna et al, Mass. Spec. Rev., 26, 185-222, 2007) for quantitive aerosol mass loadings and Droplet Measurement Technologies’ Single Particle Soot Photometer (SP2) (Baumgardner et al., GRL, 31, L06117, doi:10.10129/2003GL018883, 2004) for black carbon.  The SP-AMS uses laser-induced incandescence of absorbing soot particles to vaporize both the coatings and elemental carbon cores within the ionization region of the AMS, providing a unique and selective method for measuring the mass of the refractory carbon cores (i.e., black carbon mass), the mass and chemical composition of any coating material (e.g., organics, sulfates, nitrates, etc.), and particle size and morphology.

The SP-AMS has been deployed in several field campaigns for measurements of ambient aerosol (Queens, NY, 2009) biomass burning plumes (FLAME III, 2009) and ship plumes (CalNex 2010).