Patent ID: 7454893

Claim:
A particle generator comprising: a fuel source for supplying a combustible fuel; an oxidizer source for supplying an oxidizer; at least one combustion chamber having first and second ends; an exhaust port being disposed at the second end of each of said at least one combustion chamber; and at least one combustion source disposed within each of said combustion chambers at a first end thereof, in fluid communication with said fuel source and said oxidizer source, where said combustion source supports stable flame combustion of said fuel at an air demand ratio (λ) is λ>0.5; at least one tunable high voltage generator for applying a positive voltage to walls of the combustion chamber to extract electrons out of the flame and promote the formation of particles, such that an exhaust of particles is generated; where the temperature and air demand ratio of the combustion source, the retention time of the exhaust within the combustion chamber, and/or the applied positive voltage are varied to control the mass of the particles output from said particle generator.