The University of Toronto Continuous Flow Diffusion Chamber (UT-CFDC): A Simple Design for Ice Nucleation Studies

A new instrument, the University of Toronto Continuous Flow Diffusion Chamber (UT-CFDC), has been designed to study ice nucleation at low temperatures. Based on previous continuous flow instruments, it is a parallel plate model that minimizes convective instabilities by operating horizontally with the warmer plate on top. A variable position sample injector can account for effects arising from gravitational settling of ice particles that form. The residence time in the chamber can vary between 2.6 to 25 s and ice particle formation is monitored with a two-channel optical particle counter. Observation of homogeneous freezing of 100 nm sulfuric acid aerosols was used to verify the accuracy of the calculated relative humidities (RHs) in the chamber to be ±4%, where we report onset RHs for 0.1% of the particles freezing in the temperature range of 218 to 243 K. We also show that the chamber accurately establishes conditions of water saturation by conducting water uptake studies onto sulfuric acid aerosol at 243 K. The two channel OPC allows for ice and water droplet formation to be distinguished under such conditions. The chamber is a simple, cheap, and small design that can be readily assembled for laboratory studies.