Profiling Particles of Sahara Dust Settled on the Ground by a Simplified Dynamic Light Scattering Procedure and Sedimentation

Dan Chicea () and Sorin Olaru
Additional contact information
Dan Chicea: Department of Environmental Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Dr. Ion Ratiu Str., no 5-7, 550012 Sibiu, Romania
Sorin Olaru: Department of Environmental Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Dr. Ion Ratiu Str., no 5-7, 550012 Sibiu, Romania

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Dust particles exist in the form of mineral aerosols and play a significant role in climate change patterns, while also having the potential to affect human health. The size of these particles is crucial, as it determines the atmosphere’s albedo. In the past few years, a Saharan dust cloud has moved and arrived above Romania during spring, followed by rain containing the dust particles, which are deposited on various objects. We collected these particles in an aqueous suspension and employed natural sedimentation to separate them by density. We then conducted a dynamic light scattering (DLS) experiment to analyze their size. Our DLS setup was straightforward, and the time series analysis involved evaluating the frequency spectrum of the scattered light intensity—also known as the power spectrum—filtering it, and fitting the expected Lorentzian line to it to determine the parameters and the average diameter of the suspended particles. We found that the dust particles had a continuous distribution, with the biggest particles having a diameter around 1100 nm. The results obtained from the combination of sedimentation and DLS are consistent with reports on the size of Saharan dust particles in other regions of Europe.

Keywords: Saharan dust cloud; dynamic light scattering; sedimentation; particle sizing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4860/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4860/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:6:p:4860-:d:1092921

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().