Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi, I'm doing a project involving particulate matter(PM2.5/PM10) concentration, and the particle counters come out to be very expensive, even the rentals. So I want to contact nearby universities to see if I could loan one for about a week. Which department would likely to have particle counters?

Ah, contacting a university is a clever idea. My first thought is to look for a cleanroom, likely a facility for nanofabrication or semiconductors. That kind of work has to be done in an atmosphere with almost no particles. Researchers who make use of such a facility might be in materials science, electrical engineering, or maybe physics departments -- but actually the staff in charge of maintaining it probably have the most direct access to particle counting equipment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom

Good luck,
Amanda

Hi

I agree with Amanda that your best bet is to look for a cleanroom facility at a University and the departments she mentioned are usually the heaviest users. What I recommend after working in multiple University cleanrooms, is to do online searches for "nanofabrication xxx University" or "microfabrication xxx University" as opposed to looking into specific departments since most cleanrooms are shared by many departments.

Hope this helps,
-Judy