An intercomparison exercise of good laboratory practices for nano-aerosol size measurements by mobility spectrometers

An intercomparison campaign on nanoparticle size measurement was organized in the frame of the French nanoMetrology club. The aim of this study is to make an inventory of the metrological capabilities of all measurement techniques in France involved in the “nano” size range, including the SMPS (scanning mobility particle sizer) concerning aerosol metrology. For this study, four samples have been proposed, namely (1) a SiO2 colloidal suspension (FD304) consisting of a monomodal population, (2) two samples consisting of two nanoparticle populations of SiO2 having proportions to be determined, and (3) a TiO2 colloidal suspension. Ten SMPS associated with five participants around a common experimental setup were performed in link with a control SMPS to have simultaneous measurements with a same instrument in each laboratory in parallel with the SMPS used by each partner. This article presents SMPS results of this study associated with the description of the experimental setup and the sample preparation protocol with an identified schedule and comparison with SEM measurements. The present paper does not focus on the actual capability of the tested mobility spectrometers, but aims to highlight the good laboratory practices using their own but common resources in terms of aerosol generation and measurement setups.