Surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) aerosol generators are very promising systems for applications requiring small aerosol sources and adjustable droplet-size distributions at low aerosol flowrates. However, the droplet-generation mechanism by SAW is yet unclear and dedicated experiments are necessary to gain further insights. In this work, the atomization zone is investigated experimentally to gain more insight into the droplet-generation mechanism by SAW. Three regions are observed in the atomization zone showing different acoustofluidic effects, including the formation of liquid films and patterns in a standing SAW (SSAW) wavefield and droplet generation. In addition, the influence of the humidity of surrounding air on the measured droplet-size distribution of the aerosols generated by SSAW is investigated. Therefore, the air humidity is adjusted at constant air temperature in the sophisticated wind-tunnel Turbulent Leipzig Aerosol Cloud Interaction Simulator combined with an optical particle spectrometer with resolution down to the sub-µm scale. Besides the humidity influence on the droplet size in the measurement region, water-saturated air allowed us to estimate the initial droplet-size distribution at the atomization zone on the chip surface. This parameter is crucial for the determination of the underlying liquid-film disintegration mechanism, i.e., the droplets’ origin. Hereby, a bimodal log-normal droplet-size distribution is obtained. The mean diameter of the main droplet fraction decreases from 7.2 to 5.3 µm with increasing relative humidity from 8.6 to 97%, apparently due to evaporation of smaller droplets in unsaturated air. A second peak corresponds to a mean diameter as small as 600 nm at high humidity conditions, which is likely to correspond to a droplet-generation mechanism not reported so far and extremely difficult to measure or visualize with conventional techniques. The droplet-size measurement results from the aerosol spectrometer are compared and validated in respect to existing droplet-generation models with the results of a phase-Doppler anemometry, a high-resolution, nonintrusive local aerosol-measurement technique.

• Received 27 March 2020
• Revised 12 May 2020
• Accepted 26 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.014071