Patent ID: 7812306

Claim:
An aerosol particle sampling instrument, including: an electrical charging device adapted to bring ions of a gas into a confluence with an aerosol stream including particles, to effect a unipolar charging of the aerosol to produce electrically charged particles; an ion extraction device disposed along the aerosol stream downstream of the charging device and adapted to electrostatically remove excess ions and to selectively remove other high electrical mobility elements from the aerosol stream; a charge-responsive device disposed downstream of the ion extraction device, the charge-responsive device being adapted to receive the aerosol stream including the electrically charged particles not removed by the ion extraction device and to provide an indication of particle concentration in proportion to an aggregate charge of the electrically charged particles received by the charge-responsive device; and a system tuning component operatively coupled with at least one selected device, the selected device being selected from the group consisting of the charging device, the ion extraction device, and the charge-responsive device, the system tuning component being adapted to adjust an operating parameter of the at least one selected device for selective alteration of the indication of particle concentration so that the indication of particle concentration substantially corresponds with that produced by a predetermined nanoparticle deposition function, the nanoparticle deposition function representing a known effect of exposure to nanoparticles.